A team of researchers headed by Dr Ellen Stofan, have submitted a proposal to NASA for a mission that would see some kind of vehicle exploring Ligeia Mare, a lake of liquid methane in the North of Titan. According to Stofan, such a mission wouldn't just help scientists understand the chemical composition of the lake itself, but also the ecosystem of the moon and inspire non-science geeks by harkening back to simpler times:

It is something that would really capture the imagination... The story of human exploration on Earth has been one of navigation and seafaring, and the idea that we could explore for the first time an extraterrestrial sea I think would be mind-blowing for most people.

The proposal is expected to be submitted in the next few months, and we hope that NASA sees the potential in a return to blowing people's minds with science. Or, at least, the potential in space piracy on the methane seas.

'Boat' could explore Saturn moon [BBC News]

The Cassini spacecraft recently sent back images of Saturn's strange hexagon, which was last photographed 30 years ago by Voyager. So what is so unusual about it? In comparing the pictures now from the pictures 30 years ago, scientists have found that the shape of the hexagon has remained unchanged, making it an extremely long-lived weather pattern, perhaps akin to Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

Researchers are trying to determine what causes the weather pattern — which has a diameter more than twice as long as Earth's — how it gets and expels its energy, and how it maintains such a rigid shape. Fortunately, the improved images from Cassini and the fact that Saturn probably has a relatively simple weather model should help the researchers get a better understanding of the hexagon and how weather works on other planets.

Saturn's Mysterious Hexagon Emerges from Winter Darkness [PhysOrg]

Scientists at Caltech think they may have uncovered the reasons for Titan's extremely odd lake arrangement. Data gathered by the Cassini orbiter showed 20 times more area in the Northern extremities were covered by liquid ethane and methane, when compared to the South. The researchers, headed by Oded Aharonson, think that the transport of methane northwards may be due to the elliptical orbit of Saturn, and hence Titan.

Over the course of one Titan year (29.5 Earth years), the Northern hemisphere summer is long and mild, but the Southern hemisphere version is short and intense. That's because in the Southern summer season Titan is around 12% closer to the sun. While this doesn't make a huge difference over the course of a year, it does over a longer time period: It's possible that these uneven seasons result in methane evaporating in the south, drifting northward in the clouds, and then raining prodigiously in the milder north.

Around 32,000 years ago, the situation would have been reversed, with the hydrocarbons traveling Southward instead of North.

This theory is being published in this month's Nature Geoscience. Other possible explanations for the lakes include the idea that there is some (as yet unknown) fundamental difference between the hemispheres. It's also possible the methane transfer happens every season, not gradually.

The Titan Saturn System Mission, a joint endeavor between NASA and the European Space Agency, hopes to launch probes to Titan by 2020 with the aim of better understanding the seas, atmosphere, surface composition and subterranean dynamics of Saturn's largest moon. One of the probes would be a seagoing vessel, designed to sail on Titan's hydrocarbon lakes. Since the surface of Titan is so wildly varied, though, TSSM is also planning to set a hot-air balloon drifting for six months at an altitude of 10 kilometers, recording as it goes.

Proposals for sending a balloon to Titan have existed for a few years now. NASA reports use the term "montgolfiere" to describe the craft, a reference to the hot-air balloon design pioneered by the Montgolfier brothers in 1873. Like these nineteenth-century airships, Titan's balloon would achieve loft by capturing heated gas in a bulbous overhead bag, called an envelope. While the first hot-air balloons kept live fires burning in their gondolas, the heat for Titan's balloon would be generated by an onboard plutonium isotope.

"Hot-air" is a relative term in this case. Titan's mean surface temperature is about -290 Fahrenheit, so a balloon flying over Titan would require only about 1 percent of the heat it would need on Earth. This is one reason a ballooning mission makes sense, though there are others: Titan's slow rotation produces generally calm weather, and a system of trade winds would carry a drifting aircraft all the way around the moon. Just in case the wind doesn't do the trick, the team at TSSM is considering a mechanical propeller to help guide the balloon.

Titan features some of the most diverse terrain to be found anywhere in the solar system. Aside from the massive lakes (the only stable bodies of surface liquid in our system besides Earth's own), Titan also sports deserts, craters, cryovolcanoes and mountains of water ice. A terrestrial rover would be impractical on a world with such eclectic geology. It's hoped that not only could a balloon cover more ground than a wheeled vehicle, but it might even be able to land and scoop a bit of surface material for study.

Most current projections don't put the balloon or the boat on Titan sooner than 2029. An overview of the Titan Saturn System Mission's plans and goals is available online.

As we've mentioned before, once every 15 Earth years, Saturn reaches its equinox, when the ringplane is directly parallel to the sun. This causes the sunlight to hit the thinnest point of the rings, making the ring shadows appear as a thin band against the planet. The Cassini team was able to position the spacecraft in such a way that it was able to capture the illusion, but also captured images of the rings from positions where they were still visible.

[CICLOPS via Universe Today]

Unprocessed image of Saturn just after the equinox.
Unprocessed image of Saturn's rings just after the equinox.
Unprocessed image of Saturn's rings just after the equinox.
Unprocessed image of Saturn's rings at the equinox.

Report the study authors:

Methane clouds, lakes and most fluvial features on Saturn's moon Titan have been observed in the moist high latitudes, while the tropics have been nearly devoid of convective clouds and have shown an abundance of wind-carved surface features like dunes. The presence of small-scale channels and dry riverbeds near the equator observed by the Huygens probe at latitudes thought incapable of supporting convection (and thus strong rain) has been suggested to be due to geological seepage or other mechanisms not related to precipitation. Here we report the presence of bright, transient, tropospheric clouds in tropical latitudes. We find that the initial pulse of cloud activity generated planetary waves that instigated cloud activity at other latitudes across Titan that had been cloud-free for at least several years. These observations show that convective pulses at one latitude can trigger short-term convection at other latitudes, even those not generally considered capable of supporting convection, and may also explain the presence of methane-carved rivers and channels near the Huygens landing site.

I don't know about you, but I'd love to be caught in a brief methane storm - really gets the air smelling fresh afterwards. Or it would seem like that if you were a Titanian, anyway.

via Nature

Tonight Saturn will shed its rings — or rather, the rings will hardly be reflecting any sunlight.

According to Astronomy Now:

Equinox is a twice-yearly event when the Sun lies directly above a planet's equator. For Saturn, this occurs every 15 Earth years and sees the Sun pass through the plane containing the giant planet's rings. The unique illumination geometry allows features to be discerned in unprecedented detail. As Saturn marches towards its 11 August equinox, the Sun's angle to the ring plane lowers, causing out-of-plane structures to cast long shadows across the rings' broad expanse, making them easy to detect.

The image above, from Hubble Space Telescope, shows Saturn's axis tilting. Each image is almost a year apart: "starting on the left in 1996, just after the last time the rings were edge-on, and ending on the right in 2000 when the rings had opened up significantly from our point of view."

Iapetus travels in a tidally locked orbit with Saturn, always showing the same face to the planet. When Cassini Regio, the moon's dark hemisphere, faces the Earth, however, it nearly disappears from view, coated entirely in a mysterious black substance that is gradually creeping across the sphere. Astronomers have long speculated on the nature of the substance, which gives the moon an unusually uniform surface, and while many believe that it is composed of the dirt left behind when ice on Iapetus sublimates, they hope that new data from the Cassini spacecraft will offer more concrete clues, as well as help them understand the nature of the equatorial ridge that travels across Cassini Regio, an odd phenomenon in a surface otherwise marked by impact craters.

[APOD]

The blurry areas (including the dark plains) are spots where we have lower-resolution images of the moon's surface. The stripe of sharper images show the surface of the moon beneath its cloud layer, created via special imaging techniques.

According to Universe Today:

The US Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center announced the first plain or "planitia" given a name will be designated as Chusuk Planitia. Chusuk was a planet from the Dune series, known for its musical instruments. Chusuk Planitia on Titan is located at 5.0S, 23.5W, and in the picture here is the small, dark area next to the "C" of Chusuk

Chusuk is a minor planet in the Dune series, and in an appendix to that novel, Herbert says it is the "fourth planet of Theta Shalish; the so-called 'Music Planet' noted for the quality of its musical instruments." I'm fairly stumped about why Titan cartographers chose Chusuk. Why not just go for Arrakis?

You can see a complete map of Titan, based on survey pictures taken by the Cassini probe, with all its named features labeled, on this PDF.

Daphnis, which is just eight kilometers in diameter, is one of Saturn's shepherd moons, tracing its orbit inside the Keeler gap in Saturn's main ring. It appears as a pin prick of light, but its gravity is sufficient to pull the ring's edges out of their plane, forming undulating vertical structures. Although astronomers have predicted the waves through simulations, they have never before been captured on film. But as Saturn approaches it equinox — an event that occurs once every 15 Earth years — the rings are illuminated in such a way that shadows from the waves are visible on the A Ring, allowing Cassini to photograph the phenomenon for the first time.

Images from Cassini Equinox Mission and CICLOPS via International Space Fellowship.

Not only are these ice volcanoes massive - you can see from this image how high their plumes get - but researchers believe that ejected material from them makes up most of Saturn's "E" ring. Today Nature has published a paper written by researchers who have analyzed the chemical composition of the volcanoes, which burst from cracks in Enceladus' south pole. According to the journal:

[Author] William Lewis and colleagues . . . find that ammonia and various organic compounds are present, together with deuterium - 'heavy' hydrogen that is abundant in the oceans of Earth. Ammonia, together with methanol and salts, acts as an antifreeze, allowing liquid water to exist at temperatures of nearly −100 degrees Celsius. The authors suggest that preserving even a residual oceanic layer during cooling episodes would maintain conditions necessary for tidal heating and geologic activity.

In other words, yes, there might be an underground ocean on Enceladus, complete with tides. You know what that means? Subterranean floating colonies.

via Nature

Saturn's equinox only happens about once every fifteen years, and it's when the sun crosses the plane of Saturn's rings. Before that happens, you start to see the shadows of Saturn's moons across the rings. According to Astronomy Now:

During this celestial alignment, the shadows of the planet's rings fall in the equatorial region on the planet, and the shadows of Saturn's moons external to the rings, especially those whose orbits are inclined with respect to the equator, begin to intersect the planet's rings. Any vertical protuberances within the rings, including small embedded moons and narrow vertical warps in the rings will also cast shadows on the rings. At exactly the moment of equinox, the shadows of the rings on the planet will be confined to a thin line around Saturn's equator and the rings themselves will go dark, being illuminated only on their edge.

So you can expect to see some more spectacular vistas from Saturn, thanks to the Cassini Space Probe's Imaging Science Subsystem, headed up by Star Trek science advisor Carolyn Porco. Right now, Cassini's site includes some more images, and some movies of the Mimas' shadow crossing the rings, and fellow moon Enceladus eclipsing Mimas. Check it out. [CICLOPS]

According to NASA:

In 2006 April, Cassini captured Saturn's A and F rings stretching in front of cloud-shrouded Titan. Near the rings and appearing just above Titan was Epimetheus, a moon which orbits just outside the F ring.

via Astronomy Picture of the Day (thanks Roklimber!)

ECO FRIENDLY:
No one wants to canoodle on an empty stomach so how about a nice light lunch?



SPACE BONERS:
A photo of Saturn's rings found this week was actually previously used in the mid 90's for a DJ Mixtape from God himself. God had spent some time in the UK and was palling around with Oakenfold and Fatboy Slim and their ilk. He did a set at Glastonbury, then released this one and only album. It was terrible.


SNIKT IS ALSO THE SOUND LOGAN'S WANG MAKES WHEN HE SEES JEAN:
Ok... So, I know that after the massive success of "The Dark Knight" making more "grown-up" and "dark" comic adaptations are all the rage, but I really really think that Fox is going too far with the old Canucklehead's first solo outing.


It's been discussed before here that Mutants clearly represent persecuted social groups but really?


Now, I know that part of Wolverine's allure is his journeys through history but I really think they could've omitted his brief imprisonment in WWII's fascist Italy. It was really bad for him...

and really really really bad for Cyclops.


DISASTER:
Bones... Hustler. is making Star... Trek Porn.. This can mean... onlyonething...



Well I think I got a lot of weirdness out of my system. I'll see you all again next week with god knows what.

GarrisonDean, Signing off.

The Planetary Society Blog explains it all:

We're only a few months away from Saturn's equinox, the day when the Sun will pass through the plane of Saturn's rings. So to an observer standing on Saturn's rings, the Sun is beginning to set, and casting long shadows... I believe that what we're actually seeing is clumpiness of particles at the outer edge of the densest B ring, where particles bunch together partially by self-gravity (which would make them more like moons) but also by the periodic gravitational shoves they get from [Saturn's moon] Mimas.

We'll have to wait for higher resolution photos to be sure, but it looks beautiful no matter what it is.

Moon Shadow, Moon Shadow [Planetary Society] (Thanks, Dave)

Scientists Robin Canup and William Ward, from Boulder, CO's Southwest Research Institute, have uncovered the guilty secret of little ol' Jove: Namely, that the four moons that orbit it now had somewhere around five times more brothers and sisters that were lured to their deaths - and "eaten" - by the planet. Canup explains:

All the other moons - and there could have been 20 or more - were devoured by the planet in the early days of the solar system... There could have been five generations of moons. The current Galilean moons formed just as the inflow of material into the [debris] disc from the solar system choked off, so they escaped the fate of their unfortunate predecessors.

Canup also thinks that Jupiter may not be alone in its interest in eating moons:

We think something similar happened around Saturn, where the last generation contained one giant moon - Titan.

Amateur astronomers are now being urged to contact the authorities if they think any of our neighboring planets may be looking at us hungrily.

Cannibalistic Jupiter Ate Its Early Moons [New Scientist]

Scientists theorize that the "G" ring formed from icy debris that scattered when meteorites crashed into the newly discovered moon. Said Cornell University astronomer Matthew Hedman:

Before Cassini, the G ring was the only dusty ring that was not clearly associated with a known moon, which made it odd. The discovery of this moonlet, together with other Cassini data, should help us make sense of this previously mysterious ring.

Meanwhile, NASA was seeking your votes on where to point the Hubble Space Telescope next, and nearly half of the 140,000 voters chose an interacting pair of spiral galaxies, Arp 274, which appear to be shaking hands. The full-color image of this galactic get-together will come out during the 100 Hours of Astronomy event, April 2-5.

After all the months of preparation, we finally hit the track with the io9 Apocalypsemobile, running in the 4-cylinder class of the Hangover 150 at Ransomville Speedway, just north of Niagara Falls, NY. You can probably tell from the photos, but just to drive home the point - it was really really really really really freaking cold that day. When I woke up, the temperature was 4. Degrees. Fahrenheit.

But before I get into the fun stuff, there's a bit of bad news. The track officials assigned numbers to everyone. Therefore, I couldn't use io9 as my official number, and had to paint out the 'o' to make my number 19. I was disappointed, but it was either that or not race.

And race we did. Previous years, it has been cold and snowy, but a within a few laps the cars had churned the dirt track into a quagmire of half-frozen mud. This kept speeds slow and made getting stuck more of a concern than crashing. There were also lots more cars in the past, so many that sometimes they ringed the entire track four deep at the start of the race. This year, those factors were not in effect. The cold had frozen the track solid, and the four-inch coating of snow was packed flat by the fifth lap. Car counts were down as well, perhaps due to general economic malaise. There were fewer than 40 cars in the 4-cylinder division. The fast track and open space meant the cars could really build up speed - a lot more speed than I expected.

If there's one thing the Apocalypsemobile had plenty of, it was speed. With a dual-overhead cam engine, it had in the neighborhood of 180 horsepower, and by the time I'd stripped the interior, it weighed significantly less than a ton. Of course, as soon as I climbed in it was probably back over a ton, but still, it had some serious kick. Once a I got a feel for it, I could blast down the straights, kick it sideways in the turns and dive past slower competitors with ease. Cars were spinning all around me, fading in and out of view through billowing clouds of snow (which occasionally blew inside my helmet, which was unpleasant). I avoided them all, becoming increasingly confident and aggressive.

And that, naturally, is what lead to the Apocalypsemobile's downfall. The photos probably tell the story better than I can, but here's how it went down: I went into turn one very fast, making an inside pass on a white minivan. I figured to slide high once I was past him, letting the front wheel drive vehicle's natural push carry me through the corner. Except someone had spun out and stopped near the wall directly in my path. I slammed into his rear corner hard. Hard enough to give myself a headache, even though I was wearing a helmet. Hard enough to destroy my right front tire, bend the front frame rail, and shake something loose in the engine (the leading theory involves the ignition system). The car still ran, but the engine pulsed rather than running steadily. As it sputtered, I could only manage about 20 or so mph, which felt terrible after the estimated 40-50 I'd been doing. The Apocalypsemobile and I soldiered on for quite a few more laps until someone spun me out in the turn. I ended up stuck in the snow at the bottom of the track, up against another car.

That would have been fine were it not for the fact that my driver's side door was facing oncoming cars. Oncoming cars that were careening through the turn at high speed, barely in control. There were some moments of extreme terror as I pondered the effect of someone slamming into me. Then someone did, but luckily they hit a few feet behind my door. Resisting panic, I judged the amount of space available between my passenger window and the car I was pinned against. Enough space? I hoped so. I undid my shoulder belt, unlatched my lap belt, threw myself across the front seat (somehow remembering to grab my disposable camera in the process), then flung myself out onto the other car's hood. From there, I reached the safety of the infield.

Not 30 seconds after I got out (I was still taking my helmet off), a black Camaro slammed its rear corner directly into the spot I'd been sitting in. Close one.

Before we get to the photos, I have to thank some people for helping me make this whole Apocalypsemobile thing happen. This was easily the craziest, most fun thing I've ever done, and I could never have managed it on my own.

Thanks to:

My dad, who did enormous amounts of work on the car, contributed huge amounts of automotive knowledge, bought the battery, towed the car there with his truck, and acted as my squire in the pits, arming me for battle and making sure my trusty Saturn was mechanically sound.

Kurt, for letting me borrow his helmet. Without it, I have no doubt I would have cracked my skull in the crash.

Annalee, for being really supportive and enthusiastic, and sponsoring me.

My wife, for putting up with me keeping this thing in our garage for half a year, and not totally freaking out about the potential of me getting hurt.

My brother, for lots of enthusiasm and some excellent photographs.

Jim Mercurio, for letting me use his old drag racing seat belts.

James "Mac" McParland and www.titzenbeer.com for coming on board as an early sponsor.

io9er FredicvsMaximvs, who also sponsored the Apocalypsemobile.

Finally, here's the photo gallery. For reasons I cannot fathom, the photos appear in the gallery in random order, thus defeating my careful chronology. Still, they express the triumph and tragedy of the io9 Apocalypsemobile quite effectively. You can also check out the official race photos, as well as an excellent Youtube video that is well worth the watch. My favorite part starts around 1:10. The crowd's reaction is priceless.

Taken by the Cassini spacecraft in July, the planet is a glowing beauty. You'll never want to see colorized images of the planet again. Read more about this image at Space.com.

Photo via NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

A few things have changed since we last saw the Apocalypsemobile. It runs now, which is nice (though the "door ajar" alarm sounds constantly whenever the battery is connected). A hole has been carved into the hood - the rules dictate this modification "to expose the carburetor for fire fighting," and we followed the rules even though this car has no carburetor. You may also note the fin on the roof, required by the rules because the numbers on the side of the car will be obscured by mud almost instantly.

Recent work on the car has been somewhat difficult due to it being really freaking cold out. The temperature was 18 degrees F when I took these photos, and it was colder than that when we mounted the fin and painted it (I know, the paint on the fin looks pretty bad - I'll fix it before the race). On the other hand, the Apocalypsemobile looks great in its natural environment, a frigid post-apocalyptic wasteland rimmed with monstrous snow drifts, echoing with the howls of cannibalistic mutants. Seriously, it's a rough neighborhood.

The Apocalypsemobile has come a long way since it was first introduced. On January 1, 2009 it will enter it's first (and probably only) competition, in the 4-cylinder division of the enduro Hangover 150, held each year at Ransomville Speedway in Ransomville, NY. Fans who attend are asked to bring a non-perishable food item. Typically, this race brings in several large truckloads of food for local pantries. This year, the food will go to the Niagara Community Action Program.

Now enjoy your last look at the Apocalypsemobile before it meets whatever fate awaits it (with me inside!). With just some minor tinkering left to get done, mostly involving the seat belts, we're ready to roll. A trailer has been reserved. The car has been registered. A helmet has been borrowed. Friends and family have charged the batteries in their digital cameras (we should have video footage, too).