Titan flyby

[Tormod]

Originally posted by: Stargazer
I hope they are planning on doing radar mapping of most of the Titan's surface, to bring some light over that moon. I hope more missions to Saturn will follow soon... but it seems to go painfully slow, the exploration of the solar system.

They will do a lot of things - and considering there are at least 44 Titan flybys with Cassini I think we will know a lot more about Titan than we do now.

Yes, the exploration is slow. But remember that it has taken 25 years (!) from the initial idea of a Saturn mission until it is finally realized. Just the travel stage has taken 7 years.

The sad thing is that as far as I know there is not a single new mission for the outer solar system in development...

[Tormod]

Originally posted by: Stargazer
Could it be that the methane on both Mars and Titan comes from underground deposits? Or would such a process have depleted the planets of most methanes already?

If it does NOT come from underground deposit we have a problem, because at least on Mars the methane is washed away by the solar wind as soon as it leaves the ground. The only other possible source for methane on Mars is volcanic activity, which is not currently known to exist...so the methane must come from *somewhere* underground.

On Titan the same problem exists. In the outer layers of the athmosphere the methane is swept away by the solar winds and while the depletion rate is slower than on Mars, it would be gone in less time than Titan has existed. So it is a mystery where all the methane comes from, and why it is still there.

[Stargazer]

Originally posted by: Tormod
They will do a lot of things - and considering there are at least 44 Titan flybys with Cassini I think we will know a lot more about Titan than we do now.

I hope the Huygens probe does its job well, too, so that we can finally figure out exactly what is underneath that atmosphere. Rocks, ice, hydrocarbon lakes, frozen lakes, dirty snow?

Yes, the exploration is slow. But remember that it has taken 25 years (!) from the initial idea of a Saturn mission until it is finally realized. Just the travel stage has taken 7 years.

25 years is almost as long as I have lived! How frustrating. Is this because the space programme is, in my view, horribly underfunded and in lack of real political support? I mean, NASA gets like 16 billion each year lately, and next year, the military funding will be 482 billion, according to a proposal. What if humankind could shape up and do the exact opposite? But, maybe that's a rant better suited for the Philosophy section... Anyway, with proper funding, and enough people working on several missions, we could see a NASA (and ESA, etc.) do wonders in space. We could see a swarm of space probes examining the planets and the moons, with people to follow.

The sad thing is that as far as I know there is not a single new mission for the outer solar system in development...

Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter
New Horizons (Pluto)

So there are a few projects being worked on, but I would like to see dedicated spacecrafts to Neptune and Uranus as well.

[Tormod]

The New Horizons is a compromise after the Kuiper mission was cancelled by NASA to due budget reasons, but it is nevertheless a very interesting mission. The icy moons thing won't lanuch for at least another then years.

I completely agree with you - there is so much potential for cooperation between NASA and ESA. Cassini/Huygens is a prime example, as is the work on the International Space Station. I too would love to see a "swarm" of small satellites swooping all over the place...

[BlameTheEx]

It's looking like Titan's surface is mostly solid and geologically active

Articles on pictures, and radar maps of Titan:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996652
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca...ni-102904.html

All pictures and radar maps from Cassini-Huygens:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca...archive_1.html