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The radio jets of the Centaurus A galaxy: over a million light years long
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Enceladus Titan
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Titan 2nd largest moon in solar system
Only moon with a substantial atmosphere Cassini spacecraft has made several close flybys Huygens spacecraft landed on surface
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Saturn’s Titan atmosphere denser than Earth’s but very cold (100K) and composed mostly of N2 and methane (CH4) Completely enshrouded in smog-like clouds Methane acts like water (liquid). Few craters on the surface. Surface eroded by liquids Methane/Ethane lakes
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Possible Earthlike Processes
Tectonics Weather, including rain (methane) Erosion by winds and liquids Formation of complex organic compounds Greenhouse effect Volcanism (molten water, not rock) But: all at a much lower temperature
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Hydrocarbon lakes River gully? Coastline?
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Titan
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Huygens Probe
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On the surface! “Rocks” of ice?
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View from Huygens Spacecraft during descent to surface
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Cold, windy, surface like wet clay, ice “rocks”
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Dunes Earth Titan
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Enceladus
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Enceladus is small
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It was not considered a moon of particular interest, until this image was obtained by Cassini
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Saturn’s Enceladus Small icy moon (500 km) in diameter
Young, crater-free surface regions with like those on Europa Orbit resonance with Dione South polar hot spot and ice plumes Thin “atmosphere” of water vapor Subsurface ocean!?
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“tiger stripes”
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Ice Plumes from Enceladus
Area of plumes is much warmer than surroundings - evidence of subsurface reservoir of liquid water
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Uranus Neptune
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Moons of Uranus No large moons
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One large moon of interest
Moons of Neptune One large moon of interest
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Triton orbits in the opposite direction of Neptune's rotation in a highly inclined orbit. implies that it was probably captured by Neptune Thin Nitrogen atmosphere Volcanic activity
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Neptune’s Triton Extremely cold (< 40K) objects made from volatile materials produce icy volcanism. Huge geysers of nitrogen Pluto and the Kuiper Belt Objects may look and act similarly.
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Activity Time!
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Address the following two questions.
Be sure to involve everyone in the process!! As usual, have a scribe write the results of the discussion and everyone sign following their printed name.
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What do these names have in common?
Named moons of Uranus Cordelia Ophelia Bianca Cressida Desdemona Juliet Portia Rosalind Belinda Puck Miranda Ariel Umbriel Titania Oberon Caliban Sycorax Prospero Setebos Stephano Trinculo What do these names have in common?
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Breaking the rules? The geological “rules” for the terrestrial worlds tell us that a world as small as the moon Io should not have any geological activity. Because those were the only “rules” before the Voyager mission to Jupiter, the Voyager images of Io’s volcanoes proved that the old “rules” had been wrong. Based upon what you have learned about the nature of science this semester, should this be seen as a failure in the process of science? Defend your answer.
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Named moons of Uranus What do these names have in common?
Cordelia Ophelia Bianca Cressida Desdemona Juliet Portia Rosalind Belinda Puck Miranda Ariel Umbriel Titania Oberon Caliban Sycorax Prospero Setebos Stephano Trinculo What do these names have in common? They are all characters from the works of Shakespeare & Alexander Pope
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