Titan greenhouse effect!!!!

JRS: In article , seen in
news:uk.sci.astronomy, Martin Frey posted
at Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:24:00 :-

Didn't Eddington confirm that during a total eclipse of the Sun sometime
early in the last century?

Yes (late 1920's I think).

1919 May 29.

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In message , Hayley
writes
ive been reading a book which has stated that there is a substantial green
house effect on Titan
( similar to the Venus one but not so extream ) the upshot of which is the
same though, a
warmer surface temperature than one would normally expect considering its
distance from
the sun, the authur was hinting that we cant rule out some type of
biological activity there.

What's the title and how old is the book?
Looking at "The New Solar System", Voyager 1 actually measured the
surface temperature and found a value of 94 Kelvin ( -180 Celsius).
Unless there's some really exotic chemistry you aren't going to get life
there.
--
"Forty millions of miles it was from us, more than forty millions of miles of
void"
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

The Book is called the search for life on other planets its a recent book,

the book does state the temperatures measured by Voyager as being 94K
but also that subsurface temperatures may be much warmer as the composition
of the moon is such that it cant be just a rocky world, also life is much
tougher than we imagined
only a few years ago, with such events as the bacteria coming back to life
after a long spell on our moon
on that camera they bought back.

Hayley
"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote
in message ...
In message , Hayley
writes
ive been reading a book which has stated that there is a substantial
green
house effect on Titan
( similar to the Venus one but not so extream ) the upshot of which is
the
same though, a
warmer surface temperature than one would normally expect considering its
distance from
the sun, the authur was hinting that we cant rule out some type of
biological activity there.

What's the title and how old is the book?
Looking at "The New Solar System", Voyager 1 actually measured the
surface temperature and found a value of 94 Kelvin ( -180 Celsius).
Unless there's some really exotic chemistry you aren't going to get life
there.
--
"Forty millions of miles it was from us, more than forty millions of miles
of
void"
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

In message , Hayley
writes
The Book is called the search for life on other planets its a recent book,

the book does state the temperatures measured by Voyager as being 94K
but also that subsurface temperatures may be much warmer as the composition
of the moon is such that it cant be just a rocky world, also life is much
tougher than we imagined
only a few years ago, with such events as the bacteria coming back to life
after a long spell on our moon
on that camera they bought back.

Well, staying with "The New Solar System" because it's the best
reference I've got, and we aren't going to learn much that's really new
until Cassini gets there "all being well", I find a theoretical
composition of 55% rock. It's clear that none of the moons of the outer
planets are just rock, but that doesn't give a reason they should be
warm inside.
In fact, Titan probably doesn't have the tidal heating Io does, so it
probably doesn't have any liquid water now. It's possible, though.

I'll be delighted if they do find any sign of life, but I think it's a
terrible mistake to raise hopes of finding it. It would be tremendously
exciting though - I'd guess there's a chance something evolved during
the brief time Titan did have liquid water, and there's always that
exotic chemistry I mentioned. Something able to generate energy in the
intense cold there, and some alternative solvent.

BTW, the bacteria on that camera may not have survived as long as people
thought - they may have arrived with the astronauts.