Titan meets requirements for life
Jan 18, 2005 10: 01 EST
On top of the astonishing images and sounds of Titan, it's really impressive how ESA and NASA work their butts off - only to release their stuff for free to the world. There is a big beauty in that, which the private space sector might not offer. Let's remember this before we rule out one or the other.
What we guess is what we get
Another remarkable fact of the recent Titan event is how correct scientists have been to predict what we now have found. Artist images have mirrored almost exactly the factual photos, and check this NAY news release, published October 23, 2000:
"Standing on the surface of Titan, we would see a very dimly lit world, as bright as Earth under a full moon. Below the orange sky, the Sun would appear as a diffuse light source through Titan's high smog. At night, we would not see stars through the smog's veil. On the ground, the atmosphere would be clear and the visibility unobscured.
Temperatures would be uniform and winds quiescent. Every week, sparse clouds would appear below the orange haze but still high in the sky, barely visible."
Life should exist on Titan
This accuracy is interesting to keep in mind, as we go to another prophecy, published recently by American scientists in the journal Current Opinion in Chemical Biology: Titan meets requirements for life, the Florida team says.
"This makes inescapable the conclusion that if life is an intrinsic property of chemical reactivity, life should exist on Titan," Dr Benner says.
"Indeed, for life not to exist on Titan, we would have to argue that life is not an intrinsic property of the reactivity of carbon-containing molecules under conditions where they are stable."
Artist image (top) of probe landing on Titan, and real image (bottom) of Titan, courtesy ESA/NASA.
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