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#titan

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Mikko Tuomi

Saturn’s largest moon, #Titan, is particularly captivating for scientists.

It is known to host an #atmosphere about 1.5 times denser than Earth’s and bodies of liquid on its surface.

But even such a large #moon lacks the mass to keep a tight hold on its atmosphere.

Now, new experimental research shows that the chemical compounds in Titan’s atmosphere could emerge from processes in its interior.

#Cryovolcanism replenishes its thick atmosphere.

#planets #astronomy
astronomy.com/science/cryovolc

Astronomy Magazine · Cryovolcanism on Titan may replenish its thick atmosphereExperiments suggest that processes in the interior of the moon could keep it swathed in an atmosphere that should otherwise have been lost.
Continued thread
Public
Chuck Darwin

The NASA administrator at the time,
Sean O'Keefe,
sought to develop a new generation of spacecraft
💥powered by nuclear reactors💥 as part of what he called #Project #Prometheus.

He believed that a mission with Europa as its main target offered a perfect test case for the technology,
and thus, the "Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter"
was born.

This was a highly ambitious mission. A typical spacecraft uses on the order of a few hundred watts of power.

This probe, powered by a nuclear reactor, would have had on the order of 100,000 watts of power.

The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter was audacious in other ways,
such as using a landing component to directly sample Europa's ice.

Unfortunately, the mission also became insanely expensive,
with a budget blasting past $20 billion.

When O'Keefe was replaced by a new administrator in 2005, Mike Griffin, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter was put on ice.

Galileo sparked an incredible amount of interest in Europa.

First, NASA tried a fast, cheap mission.

Then the agency worked on the most ambitious spacecraft concept ever put forward.

Both failed. A decade was lost.

❇️ A new champion emerges

In 2000, a conservative Texas attorney named
#John #Culberson won election to the US House of Representatives for the first time.

For a time, he focused on local issues, such as freeway construction in the greater Houston area.

However, after the cancellation of the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, he was furious.

Most people in Congress, to the extent they care about NASA, do so for parochial interests and local jobs.

For Culberson, that meant Johnson Space Center, which was located in a district adjacent to his.

But Culberson was also deeply interested in planetary exploration,
and he wanted to be associated with NASA's first mission to find life on another world.

So he became an advocate of funding for a NASA center on the opposite side of the country,
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
which led the agency's robotic exploration efforts.

As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Culberson began to tuck funding into NASA's budget for the ongoing study of a Europa orbiter.

During this period, as a science reporter for the Houston Chronicle,
I began to bump into Culberson at various events around town.

He was both a conservative Christian politician and a life-long science geek.

Skeptic that I am, I wondered if his interest in science was an act to ingratiate himself with constituents,
given that the Houston area has a large biomedical community.

Eventually, however, I began to realize it was totally genuine.

He is fascinated by the Solar System and wants to know more about its origin and whether it harbors life on worlds other than Earth.

We bonded over this mutual interest.

In the meantime, there were more furtive starts on a Europa mission.

In 2007, NASA began studying mission concepts for #Europa and #Ganymede in the Jovian system,
as well as the moons #Titan and #Enceladus around Saturn.

Working with international partners two years later, NASA eventually down-selected to a combination mission in which the US space agency built an orbiter for Europa
and the European Space Agency one for Ganymede

(eventually, this European mission did launch, as #JUICE, in 2023).

NASA's part was known as the Jupiter Europa Orbiter.

However, a year later, new NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was looking for ways to cut the agency's budget.

By now, you probably know what was about to happen.

Sure enough, the Jupiter Europa Orbiter's budget was ballooning to above $3 billion.

And there was another problem
—Mars became ascendant in the agency's exploration interests.

"For the first time in 20 years, #Mars was brought into competition with the outer planets," Brown said.

"The top endorsement in a painful budget environment was a Mars Sample Return. As a result, the Jupiter Europa Orbiter died."

Once again, Culberson was not happy. But this time, he would soon be in a position to do something about it.

Public
Norobiik @Norobiik@noc.social

The #USCoastGuard presented the animation on Monday on the first day of what is expected to be a two-week hearing on the causes of the implosion.

Crew aboard the #Titan were communicating via text messages with staff aboard the support ship #PolarPrince, according to the presentation. #Titanic

Titan sub crew said ‘all good here’ in last text messages before implosion
theguardian.com/world/2024/sep

A small underwater submersible that says OceanGate on the side US Coast Guard kicked off what is expected to be a two-week hearing about the causes of the Titan sub implosion on Monday. Photograph: American Photo Archive/Alamy/PA
Public
Rasta

What a way to die!

#Titan sub crew ‘were well aware they were going to die,’ US$50M #lawsuit alleges

“The crew would have continued to descend, in full knowledge of the vessel’s irreversible failures, experiencing terror and mental anguish prior to the Titan ultimately imploding.”

The lawsuit blames the implosion on the “persistent carelessness, recklessness and negligence” of Oceangate, Rush and others.

globalnews.ca/news/10687547/ti #Oceangate

Global News · Titan sub crew ‘were well aware they were going to die,’ US$50M lawsuit allegesBy The Associated Press
Public
SETI Institute

#PPOD: This true-color image captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft before a distant flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on June 27, 2012, shows a south polar vortex, or a swirling mass of gas, around the pole in the atmosphere. "Warm" air goes up the sides, gets even colder, and sinks down the center. The south pole of Titan is near the center of the view. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / CICLOPS / Jason Major

A pale yellow cyclone is featured in the middle of the image, with faint rings in the surrounding clouds stretching out to the edges of the picture.
#space#science#titan
Public
SETI Institute

#ICYMI: The Shores of Titan

Lakes on Titan are shaped by the same processes as lakes on Earth - crashing waves cause coastal erosion. Such is the discovery in new work published in Science Advances and led by USGS scientist Dr. Rose Palermo.

During this week's #SETILive, Beth Johnson chatted with Dr. Palermo about the similarities between the two vastly different worlds and their lakes. And we made "fetch" happen.

VIDEO: youtube.com/live/LQ0doHyV7Oo

YouTubeThe Shores of Titan: Crashing Waves and Coastal Erosion ft. Dr. Rose Palermo, USGSBy SETI Institute
#titan#science#scicomm
Public
SETI Institute

#PPOD: Kraken Mare, Titan's largest lake, is over 100 meters deep and may be up to 300 meters deep in places. And it's not water. Like all lakes on Titan, this one is composed of liquid methane and ethane. It covers an area larger than all of the Great Lakes combined and contains 80% of all the liquid on Titan's surface. Taken by NASA Cassini's narrow-angle camera (CB3 filter) on July 10, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/JPMajor

A hazy, image showing the outline of methane lakes on the surface of Saturn's moon, Titan.
#titan#saturn#scicomm
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