Lakes in the limelight, the 2013 image bonanza continues Options

[ngunn]

A joy to read; thanks very much as ever for making your paper availalable to all. What it says about the presence of water ice on the surface of Titan is a tiny part of a paper that has so much more in it, but it's the sort of nugget that is much appreciated here.

[rlorenz]

There was an interesting talk by Pascal Rannou at EPSC ..... showing a very nice fit to the DISR data with a combination of water ice and fractal haze particles. Apparently it shows a water ice feature at 1.5 micron.

Awesome. 20 years ago we were grappling with disk-integrated groundbased spectroscopy, and the best fit people could come up with was 'dirty ice'. And now, after much debate on Huygens/DISR and Cassini/VIMS, we discover.....dirty ice. This is getting as bad as water on Mars.....

[stevesliva]

Awesome. 20 years ago we were grappling with disk-integrated groundbased spectroscopy, and the best fit people could come up with was 'dirty ice'. And now, after much debate on Huygens/DISR and Cassini/VIMS, we discover.....dirty ice. This is getting as bad as water on Mars.....

For any poorly constrained yet hugely significant question in planetary science, there will be an endless series of releases answering various better-constrained versions of that question.

See also, Voyager, exiting solar system. Or earthlike planet, discovered.

[Explorer1]

There was controversy about what material Huygens pebbles were made of? Wasn't water ice the obvious explanation right from the start? Obviously confirmation is important news but what other material could they have been?
I remember reading it in the thread in this very sub-forum as the images came down.
Good times...

[ngunn]

what other material could they have been?

Take your pick from a wide range of waxy or soapy organics (evaporites?). We were staring at them but we just didn't know - and truth to tell we still don't, even if water ice now seems increasingly likely.

[Juramike]

The effective dielectric constant data over most of Titan, including the Huygens landing site, is not consistent with water ice. (Janssen, 2010)
Spectral measurements only look at the top few microns of paint.
RADAR probes deeper.

+Mike

[ngunn]

I've been busy with house and family and missed this when it came out. It's a particularly clear view of Titan's lake district:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...4/N00227079.jpg

Apart from enjoying the whole picture I notice there is a bright streak across the middle of Ligeia Mare. Is it a patch of cloud, or something to do with the 'magic island' recently reported off one of Ligeia's headlands?

[volcanopele]

Those are clouds.

[elakdawalla]

Forgive me if I'm out of touch, but: Jason, haven't you been looking for clouds for, like, a long time? Is this a big deal?

[belleraphon1]

Cassini press release

Cassini Tracks Clouds Developing Over a Titan Sea
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsreleas...elease20140812/

CICLOPS site
http://ciclops.org/view/7929/Clouds-Over-L...e-on-Titan?js=1

[volcanopele]

Hmm, well, I guess I can talk about this now. Yes, we have been looking for clouds for a while and not seeing them. And yes this is kind of a big deal.

[antipode]

Is this a 'lake effect'? Is there much of a difference between the liquid and the overlying atmosphere?

P

[MahFL]

For a weather nut like me, that is awesome .

[titanicrivers]

Yes, awesome observations and imaging! From Rev 207 http://www.ciclops.org/view/7921/Rev207 two CB3 images N00227321 and N00227310 taken on August 13th appear to show clouds in motion over Ligeia Mare and Muggel Lacus. (although spacecraft motion causes whole image shift and my less than ideal image processing may have me fooled!)

[ngunn]

Well we've seen the first clouds for a while and measured their speed, now its time to hunt for the 'magic island', lake altimetry and depth sounding.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j....73231344,d.ZGU

Will the data from this flyby establish the relative surface altitudes of Ligeia nd Kraken? I'm not sure what is meant by Kraken Mare's estuary. Does that term refer to the channels that appear to link it with Ligeia or the ones around Mayda Insula? I note that the first convection clouds appeared over Ligeia, not Kraken. This would be consistent with Ligeia being relatively methane-rich and draining into Kraken; the latter acting as the less volatile ethane sump.