tecoyah

I seriously think this is the first compelling image of an ocean outside of Earth. It may not be Water....but liquid none the less. Guess we will know pretty soon and I for one am excited.

Look for the Dark areas....and tell me what it looks like to you.

http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=97548

Cassini Eyes Titan's Xanadu
Image credit: NASA/JPL

Jet Propulsion Lab -- This image taken on Oct. 24, 2004, reveals Titan's bright "continent-sized" terrain known as Xanadu. It was acquired with the narrow angle camera on Cassini's imaging science subsystem through a spectral filter centered at 938 nanometers, a wavelength region at which Titan's surface can be most easily detected.

The surface is seen at a higher contrast than in previously released imaging science subsystem images due to a lower phase angle (Sun-Titan-Cassini angle), which minimizes scattering by the haze.

The image shows details about 10 times smaller than those seen from Earth. Surface materials with different brightness properties (or albedos) rather than topographic shading are highlighted.
Click here to claim your Sony Digital Camera

The image has been calibrated and slightly enhanced for contrast. It will be further processed to reduce atmospheric blurring and to optimize mapping of surface features.

The origin and geography of Xanadu remain mysteries at this range. Bright features near the south pole (bottom) are clouds. On Oct. 26, Cassini will acquire images of features in the central-left portion of this image from a position about 100 times closer.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

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jalora

Tantalizing.

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ProdigyWill

wow....i'm going to have start following this more closely with cassini making it's first pass today

tropple

Looks to me like a multiple-impact crater feature.

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stonegrody

The Cassini mission has done so well, I can't wait to see what else it finds. Who knows what that dark patch could be. If it is an ocean of somekind, that would open up so many possibilities. Very exciting indeed.

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tecoyah

Fortunately....the lander floats

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fuzyfuzer

where do i claim my digital camera

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Asuka{eve}

We might be looking at future beachfront property. What would totally suck is if it was a future site to dump our trash.

MageB420666

If we ever get the propulsion technology to send people all the way out there, then our garbage dumping problems would be over. We'd just shoot it into the sun or into deep space.

I certainly hope it is water, cause that would greatly reduce the support for the idea that earth is the only place capable of supporting life.

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Supple Cow

That would be unusual for there to be such a visible contrast in albedo without both solid ground and liquid. I know they enhanced the contrast, but that is usually a pretty good indicator that it is liquid. However, I highly doubt that it's water. On the other hand, it might just be that the surface material is more densely packed in the whiter areas. I know that in most active remote sensing they use a fairly high energy beam that often penetrates lower density surface features a bit before getting reflected back. That might make it appear to be a different material.

I'd be interested to see remote images of it in the visible wavelengths to take better guesses at this, but then I guess that kind of thing is unnecessary with the probe and all

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JStrider

heres another picture at the astronomy picture of the day
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041026.html

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tropple

Many thought that the moon's dark areas were oceans. It's just impact areas. betcha a nickel.

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boredom

i thought they were just a deep impression on the surface like a chasm or something.

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tecoyah

Current speculation seems to point to a possible liquid methane....or ammonia ocean/lake, on the surface. If indeed there is a liquid, it would serve as a mixing bowl for chemical reactions regardless of the composition, although not as suitable as water. Still, even the chance of the expected organic rain from the atmosphere interacting to create some form of life is wonderful to consider.

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Shpoop

well as far as normal disposals, maybe, but nuclear waste could never be disposed of that way. all u need is one rocket to malfunction and you have a huge nuclear explosion a mile up in the atmosphere. no thanks

i think pluto, or a moon of it, has water. it was previouslsy thought to be all ice, but the friction of huuuuge blocks of ice creates enough energy to melt some of it. im not too sure on this though

rail

hmmm looks like a crater!

Mephisto2

At the risk of spoiling everyone's fun, how can we be expected to make accurate or educated interpretations of these pictures? NASA employees hundreds of highly skilled professionals to analyze these images.

Mr Mephisto

K-Wise

Don't you need a little more than just water to support life? Something to breathe, something to eat, a climate that isn't extreme hots or colds, etc.

Asta!!

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LeviticusMky

I think that you would be suprised how little you need to support life, K-Wise. Life on earth started with virtually nil in the way of subsistance. The conditions on our planet when life began were supposedly much much worse than anything that we find in the solar system, perhaps more akin to Venus or Mercury than someplace relatively welcoming like Titan...

Unless you beleive that we all got made in seven days. In that case, no, Titan would not be a suitable place to support life if it had only water.

K-Wise

If the conditions the earth were in when life began were still the same, and not that of what we have today, we and everything else on earth would probably die. All kinds of elements had to come together before life could inhabit the earth.

Asta!!

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JaySpencer

I think it would be amazing if life were found there. Of course it would not be for many many decades, if ever, but I hope we land an explorer of some kind there some time in my lifetime.

K-Wise

I suppose it's pretty possible. Hard to know though. Not a genius

Asta!!

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Boylan

a quote I've always liked...

"Either we are the only intelligent life-form in the universe, or we are not. Either possibility is staggering."
-- Carl Sagan

FatherTed

This is really excellent.
I love unknown puzzles like this and our solar system, never mind further afield, is full of them. It is great that we will know fairly soon if this is a liquid or not. Even a methane/ethane ocean has to help prove what is possible in our own little back yard.

If we can have oceans of different mixes in this little piece o space, what can be possible in the vast universes?

Of course, we will probably never know, but it doesn't stop the imagination running wild!

reiii

I'll bet they are going to find evidence of some extremophilic bacterial life.

Hopefully...

/edit grammar

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omega2K4

Didn't they already say that it had oceans of liquid methane?

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Bustello

it doesn't give me any hope of finding life outside our world anyway.

VitaminH

The BBC has some info on titan for those of us who don't know much about it (read: me)

That said those images are really cool.

Kinda reminds me of Aurthur Clarke's Space oddessey's and Eurpoa...except wrong planet wrong moon, but hey it's close!

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Scorps

Thats nice......but we will never make it to that planet