Man vs Machine: Google's ping pong robot pulls off a 340-hit rally - and the tech giant says it could soon.Move aside, Iron Man! Watch the moment a paramedic flies up a hill in the Lake District wearing a JET PACK.Ice clouds in the moon's atmosphere were also recently spotted gathering over the southern pole, indicating that the direction of Titan's global circulation undergoes seasonal changes. Information sent back by the Cassini is helping astronomers and planetary scientists to understand the weather patterns on Titan. The images show parallel, dark, dune-filled regions, which form the shape of a letter 'H' on its surface. On its a recent close flyby of Titan, Cassini passed just 6,200 miles above its surface. However, as they are composed largely of methane, these alien seas are very different to our own.
The Cassini probe is also revealing a lot about Saturn's second largest moon, Titan.Īt 50 per cent larger than Earth's moon, this monster object is believed to be the only other place in the solar system to have large bodies of liquid, including seas and rivers, on its surface. The potential for such activity in this small ocean world has also made Enceladus a prime target for future exploration in search of habitable environments in the solar system beyond Earth. It is hoped that images from the recent flyby will have brought the probe close enough to detect large organic molecules in the spray, which may be an indicator that life exists on the moon. In October, the probe sent back images of Enceladus, which is thought to have a global ocean of liquid water beneath a thick crust of ice and is one of the best candidates in the solar system for harbouring life. Last year, scientists found gigantic polar clouds of hydrogen cyanide roughly four times the area of the UK on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.Īstronomers say the find was 'totally unexpected'.Īfter a long journey, which included flybys of Venus, Mercury and Jupiter, it entered Saturn's system of moons in 2004 and has been sending back images ever since. While our own moon may be thought of as difficult for man to visit, researchers say Saturn's has a whole lot more to kill off any unsuspecting visitors. Titan has seasons just like Earth, only each season lasts over seven years instead of three months due to its ponderous orbit around the sun.Īfter equinox in 2009, Titan's south pole entered the perpetual darkness of polar winter. Water makes up about half the solid body by mass, and where you would expect to find a rocky crust on a terrestrial planet like Earth, Titan's surface layers are composed mainly of ice. It has surface temperatures nearly 300 degrees Fahrenheit below zero (-180° Celsius). Titan is unique in our solar system because of its dense nitrogen-methane atmosphere, which is very similar to Earth's in some ways, but very different in others.
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