The time nighs for Huygens to plunge onto Titan

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I've been looking forward to this ever since I first heard about Cassini on "The Sky at Night".  It's quite exciting, the culmination of years of planning, not to mention actual travel time to Saturn.  

I wonder what they'll find?  Will it be freezing cold hydrocarbon soup lakes?  Will it be ammonia ice?  Titan doesn't give it's secrets up easily and the heavens have a way of springing a few surprises for us every time.  

I can't wait for us to send a probe to Europa, I'd pay money to know what's under that ice.  That Jupiter's gravity can supply enough energy to drive Io into a barely stable volcanic world must mean that Europa's core is quite active too, possibly causing hot geothermal vents to pour into the sub-surface oceans, and where there's warmth and energy on Earth, there's life...

It kind of gets me back in touch with the fascinated schoolboy in me that watched Columbia rise into the sky on  TV on 12 April 1981 with barely contained enthusiasm, or when I spent my early years pouring over facts and statistics from the Apollo missions.

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bloodline wrote:
We're all keen to know what's under Europa's Ice, but we can send a probe there for fear of contaminating it with Earth life.

It's why Galileo was sent crashing into Ganymede (or was it Callisto or Io?), so that it wouldn't risk crashing into Europa and contaminating the place.

Remember that Apollo 12 brought back pieces of Surveyor 3, which had been sitting on the moon for three years and was still harbouring live micro-organisms!  They're suprisingly hardy little critters and we have a duty to ensure that what will one day becomes space junk won't contaminate other worlds.

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@Karlos,

I think you're right.  I'm sure I recall that Galileo was sent spiralling through Io's ion belts to scrub it before it was deliberately crashed.

No doubt Blobrana would put the record straight on this one!

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I love the description Blob.  I too sort of imagine a world where waxy hydrocarbon slush squishes underfoot and falls from the dark sky...

One wonders what Titan would be like if it were orbiting our own Earth, being that much closer to the sun would it have spawned life of any kind?  The building blocks are there on Titan, but it's way too cold for life to exist there.

I'd bet that Esso would have built it's first moonbase by now.

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Well, jet fuel isn't as combustable as petrol for example.  IIRC some rockets have used Kerosine and even Aluminium powder...  Not sure if they've successfully used diesel though.

O/T - the jet fuel used for the SR-71 spyplane requires very high temperatures in order to combust.  If you were to drop a lit match into a bucket full of SR-71 fuel, the match would be extinguished, and popular legend has it that if you threw the bucket of fuel onto a barbecue, the barbecue would go out too.

Anyway, Titan would have some strange properties.  Because of the overwhealming abundance of hydrocarbons, you could create a reverse bunsen burner by pumping pure oxygen into the atmosphere and combusting it...  

One of Arthur C Clarke's novels describes life on an underground colony on Titan.  I forget what it's called now but the central character travels to Earth to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Declaration of Independance.

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@Speel

I think they use Aluminium powder in the shuttle's solid fuel boosters.

The shuttle is unique in being the only manned space vehicle with solid fuel boosters, all others being liquid fuelled.  As you correctly point out, solid fuel isn't manageable and you can't "throttle back".  In essence you're riding a large firework.

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blobrana wrote:
Hum,
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Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes...

All the carbon in the Universe, including that needed for carbon-based life forms such as ourselves, has been made in the hearts of stars -  through what is known as the "triple alpha reaction" - where three helium nuclei (alpha particles) fuse to make to make a nucleus of carbon-12...
We are indeed `lucy in the sky with diamonds`
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How romantic!  
 :love:
Cheers Blob, I'll remember to drop that one into coversation with my g/f, it'll win some brownie points hehe.

I too used to watch "Cosmos" at a very young age and appreciated Sagan's unique presentation style.  I also read "Broca's Brain" which made for fascinating reading for a twelve year old...  

Would be nice to see "Cosmos" rerun.  Anyway, it's time to go and see how Huygens is getting on...  Fingers crossed...