The time nighs for Huygens to plunge onto Titan

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Karlos wrote:

X-ray wrote:
Let's hope they are indeed decent shots.

Some of the orbital shots on the ESA website are already pretty good. Surface detail is visible when photographed using wavelengths to which the cloud is transparent.

It should be interesting to see what chemicals are found in the atmosphere. Titan has been on a very low "simmer" for the current lifespan of the solar system, too cold for any quick chemistry but even the meagre light that reaches it is sufficient to drive some photochemical processes in the atmosphere.

In a few aeons it should warm up nicely. If the helium burning phase of the Sun lasts long enough, it might get a few creepy crawlies of it's own. Of course, if we haven't left (or destroyed ourselves) by then, we'd be to cindered to notice ;-)

/me starts selling plots on Titan :-D

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PMC wrote:
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.

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.

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whabang wrote:

we have a duty to ensure that what will one day becomes space junk won't contaminate other worlds

Quite the contrary; It's our duty to contaminate as many worlds as possible. We cannot live on such worlds, but some Earth-organisms would thrive there.
It's all about evolution; survival of the fittest and all of that.

Yes, but we can only do that after we have made sure that there isn't already something else there.

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

Hmmm... Diesel powered Space craft? :-D