Northern Summer on Titan
While yesterday's solstice brought summer to planet Earth's northern hemisphere, a northern summer solstice arrived for ringed planet Saturn nearly a month ago on May 24. Following the Saturnian seasons, its large moon Titan was captured in this Cassini spacecraft image from June 9. The near-infrared view finds bright methane clouds drifting through Titan's northern summer skies as seen from a distance of about 507,000 kilometers. Below Titan's clouds, dark hydrocarbon lakes sprawl near the large moon's now illuminated north pole.
Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
#space #science #NASA #cassini #Titan
#Titan is my favorite body of the Solar system and with surprise I learned from Christopher P. McKay, the mediatized planetary scientist of the NASA Ames Research Center, in a Discovery Science documentary that despite the super cold surface temperature (about -170°C), the atmospheric pressure of 1,5 bar (150% of Earth pressure) but thanks to the slow winds that would reduce the loss of the body heat (average speed of 3 km/h), a man would survive on the surface of Titan wearing only an anorak like those used in Antartica and a simple mask for the supply of breathable air, something like in the movie Avatar!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if anyone will volunteer for a trip to Titan to test that theory?
ReplyDeleteSam Collett The best candidate would be Chris McKay himself I guess!
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