Challenges of landing on alien worlds
Three ESA missions are due to send down robotic `spaceprobes` when they arrive at their alien destinations. Since these craft will be going where no one has gone before, how can scientists be sure what it will be like down there? How do you ensure that your spaceprobe is prepared for anything? Experts take every precaution to ensure that these... view more... (2002-10-10)
Titan's seas are sand
Until a couple of years ago, scientists thought the dark equatorial regions of Titan might be liquid oceans. view more (2006-05-05)
A Long Night Falls Over Saturn's Rings
As Saturn's rings orbit the planet, a section is typically in the planet's shadow, experiencing a brief night lasting from 6 to 14 hours. However, once approximately every 15 years, night falls over the entire visible ring system for about four days. view more (2009-10-26)
Drizzly mornings on Xanadu
Noted for its bizarre hydrocarbon lakes and frozen methane clouds, Saturn's largest moon, Titan, also appears to have widespread drizzles of methane, according to a team of astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley. view more (2007-10-12)
Titan may have subsurface ocean of hydrocarbons, says Stanford researcher
Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may have a subterranean ocean of hydrocarbons and some topsy-turvy topography in which the summits of its mountains lie lower than its average surface elevation, according to new research. view more (2009-04-06)
Saturn's winds are variable
A team of astrophysicists at the University of the Basque Country has detected, for the first time ever, changes in Saturn's winds. The research has merited front page coverage in the scientific magazine, Nature. The winds blowing around Saturn and Jupiter are special. Unlike those of the rest of the planets, these move in an eastwards direction... view more... (2003-06-09)
Getting closer to the Lord of the Rings
This time next year, ESA's Huygens spaceprobe will be descending through the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, becoming the first spacecraft to land on a body in the outer Solar System. Earlier this month, the giant ringed planet Saturn was closer to Earth than it will be for the next thirty years. All the planets orbit the Sun as if on a... view more... (2004-01-16)
Four of Saturn's moons parade by their parent
On 24 February 2009, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured a photo sequence of four moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet. view more (2009-03-18)
Rivers on Titan, one of Saturn's moons, resemble those on Earth
Recent evidence from the Huygens Probe of the Cassini Mission suggests that Titan, the largest moon orbiting Saturn, is a world where rivers of liquid methane sculpt channels in continents of ice. view more (2005-12-06)
Titanic Weather Forecasting: New Detailed VLT Images of the Largest Moon in the Solar System
Optimizing space missions Titan, the largest moon of Saturn was discovered by Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens in 1655 and certainly deserves its name. With a diameter of no less than 5,150 km, it is larger than Mercury and twice as large as Pluto. It is unique in having a hazy atmosphere of nitrogen, methane and oily hydrocarbons. Although it... view more... (2004-04-01)
University of Hawai'i at Manoa team unravels the chemistry of Titan's hazy atmosphere
A team of University of Hawai'i at Mānoa researchers led by Ralf Kaiser, physical chemist at UH Mānoa, unraveled the chemical evolution of the orange-brownish colored atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan, the only solar system body besides Venus and Earth with a solid surface and thick atmosphere. view more (2009-09-15)
How the moon got its stripes
A new study has revealed the origins of tiger stripes and a subsurface ocean on Enceladus- one of Saturn's many moons. These geological features are believed to be the result of the moon's unusual chemical composition and not a hot core, shedding light on the evolution of planets and guiding future space exploration. view more (2009-07-15)
New theory sheds light on space enigma
An enormous plume of dust and water spurts violently into space from the south pole of Enceladus, Saturn's sixth-largest moon. This raging eruption has intrigued scientists ever since the Cassini spacecraft provided dramatic images of the phenomenon. view more (2008-02-25)
ESA to search for life, but not as we know it
This week, astrobiologists are discussing what ESA`s Huygens spaceprobe might discover when it parachutes to the surface of Saturn`s mysterious moon, Titan, in 2005. Titan possesses a rich atmosphere of organic molecules, which Huygens will analyse. Recently some scientists have begun to think that, by redefining life, in broader terms, what we... view more... (2002-09-19)
Venus mission will hold surprises says U. of Colorado planetary scientist
University of Colorado at Boulder planetary scientist Larry Esposito, a member of the European Space Agency's Venus Express science team, believes the upcoming mission to Earth's "evil twin" planet should be full of surprises. view more (2005-11-03)
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