Friday, January 21, 2005

The world called Titan

ESA Portal - Seeing, touching and smelling the extraordinarily Earth-like world of Titan
Thus, while many of Earth's familiar geophysical processes occur on Titan, the chemistry involved is quite different. Instead of liquid water, Titan has liquid methane. Instead of silicate rocks, Titan has frozen water ice. Instead of dirt, Titan has hydrocarbon particles settling out of the atmosphere, and instead of lava, Titanian volcanoes spew very cold ice.

Titan is an extraordinary world having Earth-like geophysical processes operating on exotic materials in very alien conditions.
A fascinating press release from the ESA, but where does "smelling" come into the picture?

Update: A Guardian article clarified the "smell". It's the probe's analytic chemistry.

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