WebProNews

Tag: Titan

  • Kelly Rowland Releases New Song Dedicated To Her New Baby

    Kelly Rowland has released a new song called “Mommy’s Little Baby”. The song was written just days after Rowland gave birth to her first child with Tim Weatherspoon, Titan Jewell. Rowland sings in the lullaby, “I’ve waited all my life, all my life, to see ya, I’ve been dreaming, dreaming about you, I wondered what you would be like, you would be like, now I’m speechless”. The words clearly express Rowland’s excitement at being a mother.

    In an interview with Essence, the 33-year-old Rowland talked about how happy she is at this new junction in her life. “I have been completely on a high getting to know my son Titan. I’m so in love! I could look at him 24 hours a day,” the former member of Destiny’s Child said in the interview. She added, “I don’t think we knew that much love existed for one human being. Now I know how God feels about us.”

    In 2011, Rowland started dating her manager, Tim Weatherspoon. Kelly announced their engagement back in 2013 during an appearance at The Queen Latifah Show. The couple got married in Costa Rica early this year, and the wedding was attended by Beyonce and her sister Solange Knowles. On June 10, Rowland announced her pregnancy on Instagram.

    #SWEAT

    A photo posted by kellyrowland (@kellyrowland) on

     

    A song for Titan

    A video posted by kellyrowland (@kellyrowland) on

    Kelly Rowland was born on February 11, 1981. She was a member of the all-female RnB group Destiny’s Child alongside superstar Beyonce Knowles. When the group disbanded, there were rumors about a feud between the two. Rowland dismissed the rumors, saying, “I think the people wanted those stories for years and that’s just so sad on them because it’s not like that.”

    Despite constant comparisons to her former Destiny’s Child bandmate, Rowland had a pretty fruitful career as a solo artist. She released four studio albums: 2002’s Simply Deep, 2007’s Ms. Kelly, 2011’s Here I Am, and 2013’s Talk A Good Game.

  • Saturn Moon Titan Has Something Earth Needs

    Saturn Moon Titan Has Something Earth Needs

    Our solar system seems to be shrinking. Planning on moving to Mars? The idea sounded crazy in the past; however, recent strides show that this may become a reality within the near future.

    Now evidence has surfaced that a moon within our solar system has more in common with Earth than what may have been originally thought.

    One of Saturn’s moons, Titan, was recently discovered to contain a necessary component in the creation of plastic used on Earth. While orbiting Saturn, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft noted that Titan’s atmosphere contains propylene, which is an ingredient in developing plastic needed on earth. Car bumpers, storage containers, eating utensils, and many other items all require propylene.

    The discovery was made by NASA prior to the government shutdown through Cassini’s composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) instrument. The spacecraft has been in Saturn’s orbit since 2004, and will continue to orbit the planet until 2017.

    Michael Flasar, who serves as the principal CIRS investigator, released a statement where he explained why the discovery was difficult to make, proving the competency of the program.

    “This measurement was very difficult to make because propylene’s weak signature is crowded by related chemicals with much stronger signals. This success boosts our confidence that we will find still more chemicals long hidden in Titan’s atmosphere,” Michael Flaser said.

    The following is a NASA radar image that Cassini captured depicting two moons “kissing” each other on the surface of Titan. The title of the image is referred to as “Titan’s Kissing Lakes” to substantiate the obvious depiction.

    Conor Nixon, who is a NASA planetary scientist, served as the lead author of the research paper that explained this discovery of Titan’s atmosphere. He shared the news with the September 30th issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

    “This chemical is all around us in everyday life, strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene. That plastic container at the grocery store with the recycling code 5 on the bottom, that’s polypropylene,” Conor Nixon said.

    The following video provides more information about Saturn’s moon, Titan, and the connection between Titan’s atmosphere and that of earth’s atmosphere.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqyR_NfTw9s

    [Images Via Wikimedia Commons/ Titan’s Globe Image Kissing Lakes Image Both Courtesy of NASA]

  • Propylene Found on Saturn’s Moon Titan

    Propylene Found on Saturn’s Moon Titan

    Of all the Saturnian moons examined by NASA’s Cassini probe, Titan is consistently the most interesting. Researchers have observed large lakes on the moon’s surface, a vortex that formed rapidly, possible hydrocarbon sand deposits, and what appears to be a solid ice shell.

    This week, NASA further revealed the mysteries of Titan, announcing that propylene has been found on the moon’s surface. The hydrocarbon was detected in Titan’s lower atmosphere by the Cassini spacecraft’s infrared spectrometer.

    “This chemical is all around us in everyday life, strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene,” said Conor Nixon, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of a paper on the discovery published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. “That plastic container at the grocery store with the recycling code 5 on the bottom – that’s polypropylene.”

    Though this discovery marks the first plastic ingredient to be found outside the Earth, astronomers have known for decades that Titan contains many hydrocarbons. Methane is abundant in Titan’s atmosphere, and sunlight breaks the gas down into other hydrocarbons such as ethane and propane, both of which have been confirmed on Titan in the past.

    “I am always excited when scientists discover a molecule that has never been observed before in an atmosphere,” said Scott Edgington, deputy project scientist for Cassini at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory . “This new piece of the puzzle will provide an additional test of how well we understand the chemical zoo that makes up Titan’s atmosphere.”

    (Image courtesy NASA)

  • Saturn’s Moon Titan May Have Solid Ice Shell

    Saturn’s Moon Titan May Have Solid Ice Shell

    Saturn’s Moon Titan has consistently been one of the most fascinating objects in our solar system. In just the past two years, astronomers have found large bodies of water on the moon, seen the satellite’s weather form a seasonal vortex, and detected hydrocarbon sand on Titan’s surface.

    This week, researchers announced that odd gravitational measurements of Titan’s surface taken by the Cassini spacecraft suggest that the moon’s ice shell is rigid. Moreover, bumps in the surface of the shell could indicate large roots of ice that extend deep into the planet’s oceans. This hypothesis was based on the fact that areas of higher topography on Titan’s shell were found to have lower gravity readings, suggesting that they may cover large ice columns that would be less dense than the surrounding water.

    “Normally, if you fly over a mountain, you expect to see an increase in gravity due to the extra mass of the mountain,” said Francis Nimmo, a co-author of a paper on the findings published in the journal Nature. “On Titan, when you fly over a mountain, the gravity gets lower. That’s a very odd observation.”

    Though the ice column explanation is suitable for Titan’s gravity readings, it could conflict with other observations of the moon. According to NASA, the hypothesis would mean a lack of ice volcanoes, which other researchers have suggested exist on Titan. Also, a fixed ice shell would suggest no plate tectonic action on the moon’s suface.

    “It’s like a big beach ball under the ice sheet pushing up on it, and the only way to keep it submerged is if the ice sheet is strong,” said Douglas Hemingway, lead author of the paper and a planetary scientist at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “If large roots under the ice shell are the explanation, this means that Titan’s ice shell must have a very thick rigid layer.”

    (Image courtesy ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

  • Cassini Spots Smog Formation on Titan

    Cassini Spots Smog Formation on Titan

    A new paper using data from NASA‘s Cassini probe has described in detail how aerosols begin to form in the highest part of the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan. The research, say scientists, could help predict how “smoggy aerosol layers” behave on Earth.

    The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, states that the smog on Titan begins to form when solar radiation excites nitrogen and methane molecules in the ionosphere, creating a “soup” of negative and positive ions. Collisions among these molecules allows them to grow into more complex aerosols, which coagulate when they reach a lower part of the atmosphere. Eventually the molecules produce the hydrocarbon rain that famously creates the lakes seen on Titan’s surface.

    The researchers, based at the University of Reims, looked at data from three different Cassini instruments during the study. Data from Cassini’s plasma spectrometer, its ion and neutral mass spectrometer, and its radio and plasma wave science experiment were examined and compared to data from the Huygens probe, which descended to the surface of Titan in 2005.

    Titan is the only other object in the soar system known to have stable liquid on its surface. In December of 2012 the ESA released a high-definition photo of a river valley that runs for over 400 km (248 miles) on the surface of Titan. The picture above shows a flash of sunlight that is reflected off a lake on Titan. The phenomenon is known as a specular reflection.

  • Titan’s Craters Could be Filled With Hydrocarbon Sand, Says NASA

    Titan’s Craters Could be Filled With Hydrocarbon Sand, Says NASA

    New findings from NASA‘s Cassini probe have revealed that Saturn’s moon Titan may look younger than it really is. Dunes of hydrocarbon sand have been slowly filling up the craters that pockmark the moon.

    “Most of the Saturnian satellites – Titan’s siblings – have thousands and thousands of craters on their surface,” said Catherine Neish, a Cassini radar team associate based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “So far on Titan, of the 50 percent of the surface that we’ve seen in high resolution, we’ve only found about 60 craters. It’s possible that there are many more craters on Titan, but they are not visible from space because they are so eroded. We typically estimate the age of a planet’s surface by counting the number of craters on it (more craters means an older surface). But if processes like stream erosion or drifting sand dunes are filling them in, it’s possible that the surface is much older that it appears.”

    The new research is the first quantitative estimate of how much the weather on Titan has eroded its surface. The moon is the only one known in our solar system to have a thick atmosphere. It is also known to have seas of organic compounds, such as ethane and methane, on its surface.

    Methane is broken down in Titan’s atmosphere by sunlight, then recombined into more complex hydrocarbons. These molecules form an orange smog that envelops the planet. Some of the larger particles from the atmosphere, say scientists, rain down and become bound together into an exotic form of sand.

    “Since the sand appears to be produced from the atmospheric methane, Titan must have had methane in its atmosphere for at least several hundred million years in order to fill craters to the levels we are seeing,” said Neish.

    Titan’s methane levels are somewhat of a mystery, however. Researchers estimate that current levels of methane on Titan would be broken down within tens of millions of years. This suggests that the moon either had much more methane in the past, or is replenishing its methane in some way.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/GSFC)

  • Ice May Float on Titan’s Seas, Finds New Study

    Ice May Float on Titan’s Seas, Finds New Study

    Scientists have published a new study that concludes Saturn’s moon Titan might have ice floating in its seas. The presence of hydrocarbon ice in Titan’s methane lakes and seas could explain the mixed readings NASA‘s Cassini probe has seen while recording the reflectivity of the moon’s surface.

    “One of the most intriguing questions about these lakes and seas is whether they might host an exotic form of life,” said Jonathan Lunine, co-author of the research and a Cassini interdisciplinary Titan scientist at Cornell University. “And the formation of floating hydrocarbon ice will provide an opportunity for interesting chemistry along the boundary between liquid and solid, a boundary that may have been important in the origin of terrestrial life.”

    Floating methane ice was thought to be impossible on Titan, since solid methane is more dense than liquid methane, and would sink. The new research considers the interplay between Titan’s lakes and the moon’s atmosphere. Scientists found that the types of methane and ethane ice that might exist on Titan will float if the temperature is below 90.4 kelvins (297 degrees Fahrenheit), methane’s freezing point.

    “We now know it’s possible to get methane-and-ethane-rich ice freezing over on Titan in thin blocks that congeal together as it gets colder — similar to what we see with Arctic sea ice at the onset of winter,” said Jason Hofgartner, lead author of the paper and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada scholar at Cornell. “We’ll want to take these conditions into consideration if we ever decide to explore the Titan surface some day.”

    Titan is the only other object in our solar system besides Earth known to have bodies of liquid on its surface. Its seas are composed of organic molecules that are believed to have been the building blocks for life on Earth.

  • Cassini Spots “Mini Nile River” on Saturn’s Titan

    The Cassini probe orbiting Saturn and its moons has photographed what the European Space Agency (ESA) is calling a “miniature extraterrestrial version of the Nile river” on Saturn’s moon Titan. The formation is a river valley on the the moon’s surface that runs for over 400 km (248 miles) from its source to a large sea. The radar image is the first time such a long river system has been photographed in high resolution anywhere except Earth.

    “Though there are some short, local meanders, the relative straightness of the river valley suggests it follows the trace of at least one fault, similar to other large rivers running into the southern margin of this same Titan sea,” said Jani Radebaugh, a Cassini radar team associate at Brigham Young University. “Such faults – fractures in Titan’s bedrock – may not imply plate tectonics, like on Earth, but still lead to the opening of basins and perhaps to the formation of the giant seas themselves.”

    Researchers explained that they believe the river is filled with liquid because it is dark along its entire extent in the image. This indicates a smooth surface, and Titan is the only other object in the solar system known to have stable liquid on its surface. The liquid likely isn’t water, though. Titan’s environment contains liquid hydrocarbons, such as ethane and methane.

    “This radar-imaged river by Cassini provides another fantastic snapshot of a world in motion, which was first hinted at from the images of channels and gullies seen by ESA’s Huygens probe as it descended to the moon’s surface in 2005,” said Nicolas Altobelli, ESA’s Cassini Project Scientist.

    The Cassini probe recently celebrated its 15th birthday since launch. In its time around Saturn, the probe has found lakes on Titan, signs of water ice on Enceladus, and followed huge storms in Saturn’s atmosphere.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL–Caltech/ASI)

  • Titan’s Atmosphere Shifts Abruptly, South Pole Vortex Forms

    New data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows that a shift in seasonal sunlight has resulted in an abrupt, wholesale reversal in the circulation of the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan. According to researchers, the data shows “definitive” evidence for sinking air at the moon’s south pole where previously the air was upwelling. A paper on the data published today in the journal Nature states that the “key” to air circulation in Titan’s atmosphere is the moon’s tilt in relation to the sun.

    “Cassini’s up-close observations are likely the only ones we’ll have in our lifetime of a transition like this in action,” said Nick Teanby, the study’s lead author and a Cassini team associated at the University of Bristol. “It’s extremely exciting to see such rapid changes on a body that usually changes so slowly and has a ‘year’ that is the equivalent of nearly 30 Earth years.”

    Titan is interesting to researchers because is is one of only a few objects in our solar system, along with Earth, Venus, and Mars, that has both a solid surface and substantial atmosphere. Models of Titan’s atmosphere have predicted atmosphere circulation changes for almost 20 years, but the Titan pole that is currently undergoing winter is normally pointed away from Earth. Cassini is finally observing the circulation changes directly.

    “Understanding Titan’s atmosphere gives us clues for understanding our own complex atmosphere,” said Scott Edgington, Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Some of the complexity in both places arises from the interplay of atmospheric circulation and chemistry.”

    NASA also stated that Cassini has detected complex chemical production in Titan’s atmosphere at up to 600 kilometers (400 miles) above the moon’s surface. This means that atmospheric circulation extends to about 100 kilometers (60 miles) higher than scientists expected. The compression of that air as it sank lower created a “hot spot” high above Titan’s south pole. That suggested that changes would be coming to the moon’s atmosphere, and that a layer of haze first detected by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft may not be as “detached” as was previously thought. The haze, instead, may be where small haze particles combine into larger aggregates that drop in Titan’s atmosphere and give the moon it’s orange color.

    “Next, we would expect to see the vortex over the south pole build up,” said Mike Flasar, Cassini’s composite infrared spectrometer principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “As that happens, one question is whether the south winter pole will be the identical twin of the north winter pole, or will it have a distinct personality? The most important thing is to be able to keep watching as these changes happen.”

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • NASA Celebrates Cassini Mission With an Interactive Timeline

    Like many NASA space vehicles, the Cassini-Huygens probe has completed its primary mission but continues to provide a wealth of information for scientists on Earth. In the past month, data from Cassini has revealed a “hot cross bun” structure on Saturn’s moon Titan, as well as the fact that Titan glows in the dark.

    One month ago, the Cassini probe celebrated its 15th birthday since the probe was launched back in 1997. In celebration of its progress, NASA this weekend released an interactive timeline which highlights many of the amazing discoveries that have come from Cassini’s measurements. Some of the highlights include the probe’s first flyby of Titan, the discovery of lakes on Titan, signs of water ice on Enceladus, and the launch of the Huygens probe to the surface of Titan.

    After its launch, Cassini took the scenic route to Saturn. After two flybys of Venus, the probe whipped past Earth on the way to Jupiter. It spent the first six months of 2001 collaborating with the Galileo probe in studying Jupiter and its moons. In the summer of 2004 Cassini finally made it to Saturn. After launching Huygens and studying Saturn’s moons, the probe’s primary mission ended in 2008 and its new mission began. That mission was completed in 2010, and Cassini’s third and final mission began. Beginning in 2016, the probe will orbit closer and closer to Saturn, and on September 15, 2017 Cassini will enter Saturn’s atmosphere. According to NASA, the probe will be “crushed and vaporized by the pressure and temperature of Saturn’s final embrace…”

  • Saturn’s Titan Caught “Glowing in the Dark” by NASA’s Cassini

    NASA this week announced that it has photographed Saturn’s moon Titan “glowing in the dark.” The images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft while Titan was behind Saturn, in eclipse from the sun. They show a visible glow emanating from both the top of titan’s atmosphere and from deep in its atmosphere. The glow is only a millionth of a watt, and was detected using long exposure photographs.

    “It turns out that Titan glows in the dark – though very dimly,” said Robert West, lead author of a recent study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and a Cassini imaging team scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It’s a little like a neon sign, where electrons generated by electrical power bang into neon atoms and cause them to glow. Here we’re looking at light emitted when charged particles bang into nitrogen molecules in Titan’s atmosphere.”

    Scientists had already studies the phenomenon, known as an airglow, which is caused when atoms and molecules are excited by ultraviolet sunlight or electrically charged particles. In Titan’s case, the airglow is from Titan’s nitrogen molecules, which were excited by X-rays and ultraviolet radiation from the sun. What has surprised scientists is the glow coming from deeper in Titan’s atmosphere.

    “This is exciting because we’ve never seen this at Titan before,” said West. “It tells us that we don’t know all there is to know about Titan and makes it even more mysterious.”

    The current guess as to the deep-atmosphere glow is that it’s being caused by deeper-penetrating cosmic rays or by light emitted by a chemical reaction deep in the atmosphere.

    Scientists are interested in the glow because they are studying the chemical reactions that form the heavy molecules that make up Titan’s haze of organic chemicals. “This kind of work helps us understand what kind of organic chemistry could have existed on an early Earth,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

  • Lake On Saturn Moon: Great “Tropical” Body Of Water

    Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is believed to hold five of the bases of Earthly life in its dense atmosphere, as well as some simple amino acids, which together form the building blocks of DNA. Since that discovery, scientists have been optimistic about what it could mean for the very beginning of life on our planet as we know it; that perhaps it also sprung from the atmosphere as well as from what they call a “primordial soup” on land.

    Now, a new discovery on Titan has the scientific world buzzing: at least one huge lake, different from the hundreds of pools of water grouped around its poles by a very interesting factor. This lake, which is half as big as Utah’s Great Salt Lake and stands at about three feet deep, is located near the equator, which has earned it a “tropical” title.

    To be clear, there is no “tropical” weather on Saturn. It’s an extremely frigid planet, hosting temperatures of around -297 degrees Fahrenheit. The lakes on its surface are actually formed with methane gases and other liquid hydrocarbons rather than water. Those studying the moon have given the newly found lake a descriptor that we associate with warm, sandy locales because of its proximity to the equator.

    The interesting thing about this find is that it was previously believed that liquid methane was formed near the equatorial region on Titan and then carried on the breeze to the north and south poles of the moon, where cooler temperatures condensed it, transforming it into small bodies of liquid. Basically, if you remember anything about sixth-grade science, it’s pretty much the same thing that happens on Earth with water. But now–with the aid of NASA’s Cassini orbiter–scientists have reason to believe the methane is being supplied near the equator by an underground aquifer.

    “We had thought that Titan simply had extensive dunes at the equator and lakes at the poles, but now we know that Titan is more complex than we previously thought,” said Linda Spilker, the Cassini project scientist for NASA. “Cassini still has multiple opportunities to fly by this moon going forward, so we can’t wait to see how the details of this story fill out.”

  • HTC Announces Titan II Smartphone At CES

    HTC Announces Titan II Smartphone At CES

    Windows-based phones get serious with the help of the HTC Titan II.

    HTC announced at CES their first Windows-based phone to run on a 4G LTE network and it is a beauty. The kicker, however, is that it comes with a 16-megapixel camera. That’s truly ridiculous for a phone’s camera and makes the HTC Titan II easily one of the most compelling phones on the market for the camera alone.

    “HTC’s history of innovation in 4G technology includes delivering the first 4G-powered devices to each major carrier in the U.S., so it is exciting today to continue that leadership with our first 4G LTE Windows Phone, the HTC TITAN II,” Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corp., said. “This full-featured smartphone combines HTC’s design with AT&T’s high-speed 4G LTE network and Microsoft’s powerful Windows Phone software, giving people more of what they crave.”

    The phone is equipped with a 4.7-inch super LCD capacitive touchscreen that looks to provide a great viewing experience for movies, games and more. Of course, with it being a Windows Phone, it will also offer Xbox LIVE which has always been the most compelling part about the Windows phone software.

    The phone also features 720p HD video recording with the rear facing camera and video chat over Wi-Fi with its 1.3 mega-pixel front-facing camera.

    Now about that amazing 16-megapixel camera, it’s almost as if HTC and Microsoft want to replace digital point-and-shoot cameras. It features a wide-angle lens, autofocus, dual LED flash, red eye reduction, image stabilization, a backside-illuminated sensor and a physical camera button. It seems like HTC made a camera and decided to throw a smartphone on top of it.

    The phone’s hardware will feature a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S2 processor and a decent battery that will provide plenty of longevity before a recharge is required.

    The Windows phone software is also looking pretty good and could be a serious contender for iOS and Android devices. With this new amazing camera that happens to be a smartphone, Windows phones could be a market disruptor. If Windows phones can keep getting hardware this good, I don’t see why not.

    The HTC Titan II will launch exclusively with AT&T in the coming months.