The Hyperion dispute and chaos in space
When reading around for my piece yesterday on the wavefunctions of quantum mechanics, I stumbled across an old and fascinating debate about Saturn’s moon Hyperion. The question of how the smooth, cla…
Titan
12 posts
A mystery on Venus
Scientists have reported that they have found abnormal amounts of a toxic compound called phosphine in Venus's atmosphere, at 55-80 km altitude. This story is currently all over my Twitter feed be…
A new map of Titan
It’s been a long time since I’ve obsessed over Titan, primarily because after the Cassini mission ended, the pace of updates about Titan died down, and because other moons of the Solar System (Europa,…
Why Titan is awesome #11
Titaaaaan! Here we go again. 😄 As has been reported, NASA has been interested in sending a robotic submarine to Saturn's moon Titan to explore the hydrocarbon lakes near its north pole. Various…
Why Titan is awesome #10
Titaaaaan! How much I've missed writing these posts since Cassini passed away. Unsurprisingly, it's after the probe's demise that we've really begun to realise how much of Cassini'…
Titan's lakes might be fizzing with nitrogen bubbles
The results are relevant for future lander-probes to Titan – and to understand the surface chemistry of the only other body in the Solar System known to have liquids on its surface.…
Titan's chemical orgies
New studies of Saturn’s moon Titan should make it more familiar – but the more we learn about it, the more outlandish Titan gets.…
A falling want of opportunity for life to grip Titan
There is a new possibility for life on Titan. Scientists affiliated with Cornell University have created a blueprint for a cellular lifeform that wouldn’t need water to survive. Water on Earth has be…
A close encounter with the mid-sized, icy kind
In three days, NASA's Cassini mission will fly by Saturn's second-largest moon Rhea. While interest in the Saturnian moons has been hogged by the largest - Titan - Cassini's images of Rhea…
Life on Titan's world of goo
In the August 8 issue of Science, an international team of scientists has a paper that submits evidence of life in an asphalt lake in Trinidad. Despite having a low water content of 13.5%, it still po…
Life on Titan's world of goo
In the August 8 issue of Science, an international team of scientists has a paper that submits evidence of life in an asphalt lake in Trinidad. Despite having a low water content of 13.5%, it still po…
What life on Earth tells us about life 'elsewhere'
In 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi asked a question not many could forget for a long time: "Where is everybody?" He was referring to the notion that, given the age and size of the universe,…