Sentences with phrase «ethane seas»
Much like submarines on Earth, the sub would explore the depths of one of Titan's methane / ethane seas.
http://www.americaspace.com/
There are no jolly elves at Titan's north pole; liquid methane and ethane seas appear as splotchy features near the moon's poles.
With the sun now shining down over the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan, a little luck with the weather, and trajectories that put the spacecraft into optimal viewing positions, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has obtained new pictures of the liquid methane and ethane seas and lakes that reside near Titan's north pole.
On January 14, the Huygens probe will parachute to the surface and show what lies beneath the haze: Light areas may be ice continents; darker regions could be chilly ethane seas.
Not exact matches
The sea may also be stratified, with more ethane in the deeper layers and methane near the surface.
The fact that the radar signals could bounce off the sea bottom suggests that the seas were more transparent than expected and thus must contain mostly methane, not ethane.
It sits in Ligeia Mare, a sea made of methane, ethane and nitrogen in Titan's northern polar region.
If currents occasionally pull methane down to the deeper sea, the methane and ethane can mix, simulations by Daniel Cordier of the University of Reims Champagne - Ardenne in France and colleagues suggest.
Titan is Saturn's largest moon, a cryogenically cold world with a surface shaped by hydrocarbon rivers and seas fed by methane, ethane and complex organic compounds raining out of its thick, smoggy atmosphere.
The model assumes Titan is pockmarked with seas made of 70 per cent ethane, 25 per cent methane, and 5 per cent nitrogen, and partially coated with an oily sludge.
A fake lake simulating conditions there hints that the moon may host ethane pools saturated with benzene, just as the Dead Sea is packed with salt.
That doesn't mean it would be a good vacation spot, however; those dark lakes and seas, which mostly cluster around the north pole, are filled with liquid methane and ethane.