<![CDATA[io9: Map]]> http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: Map]]> http://io9.com/tag/map http://io9.com/tag/map <![CDATA[ A Vector Map of the Unnamed Methane Sea on Titan ]]> Peter Minton is a California teacher who loves to make vector maps in his spare time. His favorite places to map are islands and coastlines, and so when the Cassini-Huygens probe sent back images from Saturn's moon Titan he was happy to discover the geographical features he loves most. There, on the pole of Titan, was a sea full of islands. An unnamed methane sea, but still mappable using vectoring software. This is the map he created, with longitude and latitude lines.

Minton, who already created vector maps of the islands in this sea, writes:

I went ahead and digitized the shoreline of the unnamed methane sea . . . It is one of the largest bodies of liquid known to exist on this moon of Saturn. This body of liquid methane, ethane and nitrogen is about the size of Lake Superior.
The intrepid map afficionado at Strange Maps blog adds:
The orange opacity of Titan's atmosphere makes the moon appear bigger than it actually is - astronomers have since distinguished between permanent cloud cover and surface, and downgraded it from the first- to the second-largest moon in our system, after Jupiter's satellite Ganymede.

Not until the flyby, in 2004, of the Cassini-Huygens mission could scientists confirm the speculation, first ignited by both Voyager missions and then heightened by Hubble observations, that Titan is the only heavenly body (save Earth) to contain large liquid surfaces - or seas, as non-astronomers would call them. For they seem a bit too small to be labelled oceans.

These seas, or lakes, most probably consisting of methane or another hydrocarbon, can be seen on this page of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

This sea is one of the few unnamed large bodies of liquid in the solar system. What should we name it?

EVS-Islands [via Strange Maps]

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Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:00:00 PDT Annalee Newitz http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=372741&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ 3D Map of the Milky Way Reveals Billowing Hydrogen Light Clouds ]]> This is part of the first 3D map of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Over 200 thousand objects are included in the map, which was made up of images from a telescope in the Canary Islands that took hydrogen emission-sensitive pictures of the night sky. The result is that the brighter areas show "hotter" spots where stars are being born. Image via Institute of Astronomy/University of Cambridge. Milky Way Mapped in 3D [Discover News]

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Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:00:50 PST Annalee Newitz http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=333099&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Are You in a Climate Change Hot Zone? ]]> An international team of scientists has crunched the numbers and predicted which areas of the world will be hit hardest by the effects of climate change. They created this map of the "socioclimatic" future of the world. The reddest areas, which include China, India, and the United States, are in the most danger because they suffer from a deadly combination of social problems and lax policies on toxic emissions (it's no coincidence that all three countries are not signatories to the Kyoto Treaty). Check out the stats for yourself. [Eurekalert] Image by Pamela Burroff-Murr/Diffenbaugh et al./Dan Annarino/NOAA.

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Tue, 11 Dec 2007 07:30:58 PST Annalee Newitz http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=332273&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Welcome to New Brainland ]]> Image by Sam Brown [Bioephemera]

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Mon, 19 Nov 2007 06:15:10 PST Annalee Newitz http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=324223&view=rss&microfeed=true