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Mathematicians Explain Why Some Lengths Can’t Be Measured
Can you assign a size to every object? The surprising answer is no
Jupiter's violent moon Io has been the solar system's most volcanic body for around 4.5 billion years
AI Report Shows ‘Startlingly Rapid’ Progress—And Ballooning Costs
A new report finds that AI matches or outperforms people at tasks such as competitive math and reading comprehension
Alt-space history series 'For All Mankind' gets 5th season, new 'Star City' spinoff
NASA greenlights 2028 launch for epic Dragonfly mission to Saturn's huge moon Titan
SpaceX’s Starship Could Save NASA’s Beleaguered Mars Sample Return Mission
Facing budgetary pressure for its Mars Sample Return program, NASA has turned to private industry for ideas—perhaps with one specific company in mind
It’s Time to Act on Pilots’ Mental Health
Mental health recommendations for pilots and air traffic controllers bring new ideas to old problems; the FAA must decide what’s next
What Philosopher Ibn Sina Can Teach Us about AI
A philosopher who lived centuries before artificial intelligence might be able to help us understand the field's personhood questions
Quantum-proof encryption may not actually stop quantum hackers
Quantum-proof encryption may not actually stop quantum hackers
Hollywood Should Give Brain Science a Star Turn
Movies and TV shows frequently depict physical and biological sciences well, but often depict psychological and brain sciences poorly. Here’s why, and what we can do about it
NASA still investigating Orion heat shield issues from Artemis 1 moon mission
Particles move in beautiful patterns when they have ‘spatial memory’
Particles move in beautiful patterns when they have ‘spatial memory’
Are Titan's Dunes Made of Comet Dust?
A new theory suggests that Titan’s majestic dune fields may have come from outer space. Researchers had always assumed that the sand making up Titan’s dunes was locally made, through erosion or condensed from atmospheric hydrocarbons. But researchers from the University of Colorado want to know: Could it have come from comets?
The dunes of TitanWhen the Cassini spacecraft arrived in orbit around Saturn, nobody had ever seen beneath the thick soupy atmosphere of Titan. So when it dropped the Huygens lander, and began probing Titan with cloud-penetrating radar, scientists were surprised to learn that Titan has a very earth-like appearance. It has a thick nitrogen atmosphere, rain, rivers, oceans and massive dune fields. But unlike the dunes of Earth’s sandy deserts in Namibia and southern Arabia, Titan’s dunes are enormous, and fill massive fields covering more than an eighth of the giant moon’s surface. These dunes are about 100 meters tall, 1 to 2 km wide at the base, and can stretch for hundreds of kilometers in length.
Dunes on Earth are made from sand, which is blown by the wind and heaped into drifts. Individual sand particles are nudged and blown by the wind with enough force to make them bounce and scatter in a process called saltation. If the particles don’t bounce, then they cannot pile up on top of each other, but if the wind is able to lift them off the ground completely then they simply blow away. Saltation depends on the size and mass of the sand particles and the strength of the wind, but also needs the particles to be dry so that they can move freely without sticking together.
Titan’s geologyTitan is the second largest moon in the entire Solar System, beaten only by Ganymede, orbiting Jupiter. It is Saturn’s largest moon, and very old. Unlike most of Saturn’s moons, which were captured over time, Titan would have formed together with Saturn billions of years ago. Despite having so many features in common with Earth, it is a very different place. It is so intensely cold that, instead of water, its rain and rivers are made from liquid hydrocarbons like methane. Water, on the other hand, is frozen into hard ice; rocks on Titan are made from water ice, instead of granite and basalt, and Titan’s equivalent of lava and magma are made from liquid water and ammonia.
This means that sand on Titan is not made from silica eroded from larger rocks, since those materials are not found on the surface. One popular theory is that it could instead be made from ice. When liquid methane rains and flows, it could erode the water-ice bedrock, grinding chunks together to a sand of ice grains. An alternative idea is that the sand particles are instead made from tholins. These are found all over the colder regions of the Solar System, where cold hydrocarbons in comets or the outer atmospheres of planets and moons react with ultraviolet light from the Sun to create complex compounds. Tholins formed in the dry atmosphere of Titan could clump together with static electricity to form small grains of soot that then settle to the ground, creating both dust and sand.
Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle captured during its last pass by Earth on Nov. 1, 1992. Credit: Gerald Rhemann What do comets have to do with this?A paper presented at this year’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) suggests a new idea: What if the sand came from comets? Comets, as we know, are made from materials left over from the creation of the Solar System. Most of the primordial gas and dust that collapsed from an ancient nebula to form the Solar System would have ended up in the Sun, with the bulk of the remains forming the planets. But this would still have left a lot of material floating free, and some of that would have gradually coalesced into lumps of dust and ice, which we see today as comets. When comets are nudged into elliptical orbits and pass through the inner Solar System, some of their ice heats up and sublimates into gas which blows out, carrying dust with it. This dust is scattered throughout the Solar System, concentrated along the various comet’s orbits. Individual grains often collide with the Earth, which we see as meteors, burning high in our atmosphere. Recent surveys in Antarctic ice fields, where there is no surface sand, have found many such particles which have survived atmospheric reentry.
But Earth is not the only place where these grains can end up. According to the researchers, there was a time when a great many comets were passing close by Saturn and its moons. They ran simulations to study the evolution of the Kuiper Belt, using a version of the Nice model. The Nice model, named for the city in which it was first presented, says that the Solar System was originally arranged very differently from how it is today. Over time, the planets migrated to their current locations. During this period, Neptune passed through the Kuiper belt, nudging many comets into new orbits. Many of these comets passed close by Saturn and its moons, and some even collided with the moons. The researchers suggest that much of the sand making up Titan’s dunes may be debris from all these comets.
Artist’s concept of Dragonfly soaring over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve GribbenBut is it true? This idea does fit with what we currently know, and is supported by computer modelling, but so do the other theories. Fortunately, NASA recently confirmed that the Dragonfly mission will be launched in July 2028. Dragonfly is a lander, which will be sent to Titan. But unlike previous missions, this one is an 8-rotor flying drone. Like the rovers on Mars, it will be able to move to any areas of interest that scientists would like to study further. When it arrives in 2034, it will fly to dozens of locations on Titan’s surface, and should settle the question once and for all: Are the dunes of Titan really built from comet dust?
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/1550.pdf
The post Are Titan's Dunes Made of Comet Dust? appeared first on Universe Today.
OSDR hosts Blue Origin Erika Wagner
Friday, March 29, 2024—The Open Science Data Repository hosted the sixth presentation showcasing flight integrators in the “Meet the Expert” series. This series is targeted for the Open Science Analysis Working Group (AWG) community to aide their space biology experiments. In this latest presentation, Dr Erika Wagner—a Senior Director of Emerging Market Development for Blue Origin—provided an introduction to Blue Origin, and how to participate in conducting microgravity research on their platforms. She also spoke a bit to her personal journey from biomedical engineering to aerospace. This meeting included a one-hour presentation that was attended by 26 AWG members followed by a networking social happy hour where AWG members continued to connect with the expert as well as each other.
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Earth’s Coral Reefs Face a New, Deadly Mass Bleaching. They Can Still Be Saved
“A mass bleaching event is, by definition, a mass mortality event,” a leading coral reef expert says
A Dengue Fever Outbreak Is Setting Records in the Americas
At least 2.1 million cases of dengue fever have been reported in North and South America, and this year 1,800 people have died from the mosquito-borne disease