Topic: Saturn Moon Has Surprisingly "Slushy" Insides

[sam]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100311-saturn-moon-titan-core-water-ocean/

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is perhaps best know for its unique, hazy atmosphere and lakes of liquid methane.

But a new look at Titan's insides reveals even more oddities: Beneath the brittle crust of ice lies a layer of slush. Deeper still is an underground ocean over a solid core of rock and ice.

[Clive]

Titan and Jupiter's Europa are the two most exciting moons in the solar system.  The Chinese, Indians and Iranians will undoubtedly be sending probes during the next couple of decades.   

[sam]

hopefully with a made in the EU stamps on the instruments.

[Clive]

China, India and Iran are joining the EU?    

[sam]

if only. lol. No I meant they build the rockets with put the instruments on there.

[Clive]

We build a lot of space instruments in the UK to be fair.  Thee is even a possibility that the mirrors for the EXTREMELY LARGE TELESCOPE will be manufactured built in north Wales.  42 metres!!  We used to think the Kecks were big! 

[Simon]

That's big! 

[Clive]

The famous Palomar telescope was just 5 metres in diameter.  A friend of mine used to use it regularly and actually observe through the eyepiece. 

[sam]

not as good as the Overwhelming Large Telescope - http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/owl/

or indeed what I work on the SKA :-) but that's different of course.

That's cool about Palomar!

[Clive]

You've met that person Sam.  Roger Griffin from Cambridge University.  The staff who actually operated the telescope had never been asked for an eyepiece before because the astronomers usually wanted photographic plates which the staff themselves took.  The astronomers would come in the following day to take the photos away for study.  Roger, who was allocated use of the telescope for one week every year for 14 years actually stayed there all night with his eye glued to the eyepiece. 

[Rik]

What a nasty trick to play on him.

[sam]

You've met that person Sam.  Roger Griffin from Cambridge University.  The staff who actually operated the telescope had never been asked for an eyepiece before because the astronomers usually wanted photographic plates which the staff themselves took.  The astronomers would come in the following day to take the photos away for study.  Roger, who was allocated use of the telescope for one week every year for 14 years actually stayed there all night with his eye glued to the eyepiece. 

I thought it must have been him. Cool.. but I'd argue not repeatable science. I understand the eye is a great instrument but still...

[Clive]

He carried out spectroscopic radial velocities to search for binary stars at the same time so it wasn't all gratuitous.    Incidentally, his colleague was LYMAN SPITZER after whom they named the Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope.  The used to go mountaineering together in the Alps every summer until just before his death in 1997.  He was 84 but Roger is now 74 and climbed both Cotopaxi  and Kilimanjaro after he turned 70.  It's as much as I can do to climb the hill leading to my house.      Astronomers are tough cookies. 

[sam]

indeed they are... and they never seem to know when to stop working.