Titan's changing lakes |
Titan's changing lakes |
Jan 29 2009, 07:22 PM
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#101
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
Today's big news?
http://ciclops.org/view/5471/CASSINI_FINDS...ILL_TITAN_LAKES Changes in the south polar region were announced late last year. Is there more to this story now?? |
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Dec 12 2009, 05:40 PM
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#102
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Member Group: Members Posts: 202 Joined: 9-September 08 Member No.: 4334 |
Well, is it possible that *just* the methane moves, and so at the other end of the cycle (which we haven't yet seen) Kraken would be almost entirely ethane?
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Dec 12 2009, 06:26 PM
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#103
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 |
...is it possible that *just* the methane moves? If I understand it right, there's going to be a complex mix of at least three volatiles in the lakes: nitrogen, methane, and ethane. So the evaporating material would also be an (enriched) mix of the three components, with the more volatile (nitrogen and methane) probably the larger component. The stuff left behind will be enriched mix in the lower vapor pressure material, ethane in this case. This is assuming that there is no azeotrope is formed between nitrogen, methane, ethane. ('Course one of the other components in a Titan lake might actually cut an azeotrope, too...) I don't think it would be possible to have all the ethane left behind in the "pot" and the other components "distilled out". (Technically an evaporating lake is a single plate distillation of two hydrocarbon solvents (and nitrogen). To be able to get a clean fractional distillation in a lab would require a spinning band distillation with many theoretical plates, again assuming no azeotrope.) -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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