Presented By: Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR)
Sailing the Seas of Titan - Saturn's Earth-like Moon
Ralph Lorenz, John Hopkins University
Open to the public, no registration is needed.
Refreshments will be served.
Oceanography is no longer just an Earth Science. The ongoing NASA/ESA Cassini mission - still making exciting discoveries 10 years after its arrival in the rich Saturnian system - has found that three seas of liquid hydrocarbons adorn Saturn’s giant, frigid moon Titan. Titan was already exotic, having a thick, organic-rich atmosphere, and a diverse landscape with mountains, craters, river channels and vast fields of sand dunes, but these seas, and hundreds of lakes, present a new environment (low gravity, dense atmosphere, hydrocarbon liquid) in which to explore familiar and important physical processes such as air:sea heat and moisture exchange, wind-driven currents and waves, etc. Moreover, Titan’s seas (notably the two largest ones, Kraken Mare and Ligiea Mare, about 1000km and 400km across, respectively) offer an appealing and accessible target for future Titan exploration.
Refreshments will be served.
Oceanography is no longer just an Earth Science. The ongoing NASA/ESA Cassini mission - still making exciting discoveries 10 years after its arrival in the rich Saturnian system - has found that three seas of liquid hydrocarbons adorn Saturn’s giant, frigid moon Titan. Titan was already exotic, having a thick, organic-rich atmosphere, and a diverse landscape with mountains, craters, river channels and vast fields of sand dunes, but these seas, and hundreds of lakes, present a new environment (low gravity, dense atmosphere, hydrocarbon liquid) in which to explore familiar and important physical processes such as air:sea heat and moisture exchange, wind-driven currents and waves, etc. Moreover, Titan’s seas (notably the two largest ones, Kraken Mare and Ligiea Mare, about 1000km and 400km across, respectively) offer an appealing and accessible target for future Titan exploration.
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