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Posted by: Juramike Jan 22 2010, 09:29 PM

Lopes et al. Icarus (in press) "Distribution and interplay of geologic processes on titan from Cassini radar data"
Analysis of RADAR data from Ta - T30 flybys.

Summary from Insider's Cassini: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cassiniinsider/insider20100119/#</a>

Here is the source article (freely available): http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mitri/articoli/lopes_09.pdf

(Whoo-hoo! Sotra Facula is considered cryovolcanic!)

Posted by: ngunn Jan 22 2010, 10:25 PM

Thanks for posting that, Mike. I've only read the conclusions, but I was impressed (moved) by the acute awareness of the limitations of our present knowledge of this place despite the quantity of data so far returned by Cassini and Huygens. Investigating Titan is clearly a humbling as well as an exciting experience, and it looks like being a long game.

Posted by: belleraphon1 Jan 23 2010, 12:21 AM

Fantastic... here we are seeing yet another world (and what a world) open to us bit by bit. And we have a whole universe of worlds waiting to be discovered and understood. Only thing that beats this is having my family with me.

Thanks CASSINI team. And Mike for the heads up on this article!

Craig

Posted by: belleraphon1 Jan 23 2010, 12:58 AM

Sitting on my desk is a copy of the 1966 version of the book "Intelligent Life in the Universe" b y I.S. Shklovskii and Carol Sagan. I remember begging my mother that I would do whatever chores needed if she would scrape up the money for me to order this from Dover press back in the 60's.

On page 332 is just a sentence devoted to Titan mentioning the Kuiper detection of a methane atsmosphere. Back then, all that could really be written about Titan aside from photometric measurements of albedo.

In front of me on my desk is my laptop with the Lopes et al article on the geologic mapping of this moon.

What a time to have lived and how much more to look forward to.

Carl Sagan used to talk of how priviledged we are to live in this time when we go from ignorance and guessin to measurement and a knowing of our planetary neighbors. In a single lifetime.

What a shame Carl Sagan is not alive to see this!

And looking at that book, I realize how priviledged I am.

Craig

Posted by: ngunn Jan 23 2010, 10:30 AM

Having had more time with the paper I found the section on relative ages particularly interesting. There was one sentence, though that made me want to ask a question:

the patches of hummocky and
mountainous terrain are scattered all over the surface and that nowhere
do they appear uneroded or stratigraphically younger than
another local terrain type. We consider these to be the oldest geologic
formations on Titan that are still preserved.

My question is how would one distinguish an eroded highland that was elevated in the distant past and eroded more recently from one (like the Himalayas) that is being raised and eroded concurrently?

Posted by: Jason W Barnes Jan 23 2010, 11:43 AM

QUOTE (belleraphon1 @ Jan 22 2010, 06:58 PM)

Posted by: belleraphon1 Jan 23 2010, 11:22 PM

Thanks Jason! Enjoy the book!

I love going through old tesxbooks and popular books.... makes me appreciate where we are now. Plus it is just fun!!!! Another fun read is "We Are Not Alone" by Walter Sullivan. 1964, 1966 editions. Space related matters were finally trickling into the concsiouness of the larger population. And the Earth sciences were being revolutionized by the reality of continental drift (plate tectonics) and the importance of impact cratering on other worlds. What a time!

For Titan the Barnes et al paper "VIMS spectral mapping observations of Titan during the Cassini prime mission" is also a must read http://barnesos.net/publications/papers/2009.12.PSS.Barnes.VIMS.prime.data.pdf

Since Mike pointed out the Lopes paper I have been gathering my collection of Titan articles regarding the climate and methanological cycle as well. Have lot of free time tomorrow and gonna do a Titan read fest.

Sometimes it is good to go through such a review to put new work in perspective.

Craig