Does Veeky Forums think that we need better pictures of Titan...

Does Veeky Forums think that we need better pictures of Titan ? By the way Titan is one of the only satellite where you can find liquid on the surface even if it's not water.

Other urls found in this thread:

astrogeology.usgs.gov/facilities/mrctr/venus-online-map
livestream.com/viewnow/NIAC2016/videos/133844214
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

I think that we need better pictures dude it's a cool satellite of saturne

We need better pictures of all of the solar system's objects.

Best picture of Titan

it looks like a fucking dragon that little circle is like an eye at the right and at the left is the mouth wtf

>where you can find liquid on the surface
Doesn't one of the planets closer to the sun than us have liquid methane or something on the surface?

>I agree with you dude on this picture there are some strange forms on the surface of Titan but this is due to the low quality.

>ofc there is methane on earth but NASA think that there is an ocean of methane on Titan's surface. I won't talk a lot about liquid water because actually NASA suppose that we can found it on Mars but also on Encelade ( another saturn's moon).

The hydrocarbon lakes of Titan are larger than the Great Lakes in the US and contain more fuel than can be burned using all the oxygen on Earth.

Venus has a thick atmosphere and perhaps Sulfur seas.

user, Titan is covered in haze. Which means you can't really see shit. You can't do any valuable science with pretty color pictures the public likes

But we can see through the haze with radar. Here is a colorized synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image of one mare in titan.

Yeah we could use better images, lobby for more funding for planetary science.

For US folks, the SLS is eating up the planetary science budget

>> sulfur seas on venus
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Have you been reading some pre-1950s sci-fi when they still believed Venus wasn't a hellhole?

We've mapped the entirety of Venus' surface using SAR and we have yet to find anything resembling seas

Shit here's a map of it here:
astrogeology.usgs.gov/facilities/mrctr/venus-online-map

Pic related: pancake volcano domes on venus

OP here. You are correct user this is why nasa should try to get picture from a module set in Titan's atmosphère (like in a dirigible) to get some better and closer pics, by the way what do you think about methane sea exploration that NASA would like to work on ? would it be a great idea ?

>some pre-1950s sci-fi
Silly now of course but I kinda like the overly optimistic extrapolations of a more innocent age.

Venus covered in cloud? Clearly a wet, damp and humid world, a bit like Earth millions of years ago. Clearly dinosaurs must be roaming there. Etc. Things quickly got out of hand and Edgar Rice Burroughs had a field day.

Venus having canals? Clearly the works of a dying civilisation on a world slowly turning into a vast desert. Things again got out of control. And Heinlein scored a few good books.

I think it is cheaper, faster and safer to take the low risk approach: more mapping from space with ground mapping radars and means to map the lakes. There are still many white areas on the maps. Only then can we launch a ground crawler safely, next a lake explorer. Ground and lake vessels will need strong power sources so some major work need to be undertaken there, will a plutonium source work without bringing the lakes to boil? Etc.

>Titan is one of the only satellite where you can find liquid on the surface

No, titan is the ONLY other world to have bodies of surface liquid

Titan is, however, the only satellite theorised to have 2 distinct seas, one of hydrocarbons and one of water (subsurface).

It's also not cooking in radiation (Europa orbits in Jupiter's radiation belt, that's 540rem/24hours) and has an atmosphere rich in nitrogen and methane.

>It's also not cooking in radiation

Europa is locked to a synchronous orbit with Jupiter, so the radiation is only really a problem on the trailing hemisphere of the moon.
And the Ice crust of Europa is like 60 miles deep before you even get to the ocean.

Europa is still the most likely place we will find life.

here is a pic of encelade

>>methane sea exploration that NASA would like to work on
They are doing a phase II NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts(NIAC) study the feasibility of it. Here is there most recent presentation on it:
livestream.com/viewnow/NIAC2016/videos/133844214

One issue is getting enough buoyancy change to reach the bottom with uncertainty in lake composition. Another is that radar images of the lake appear to show that it is pretty treacherous(interesting if you ask me). This is what concept studies are for though.

>>will a plutonium source work without bringing the lakes to boil
no but that might be a feature and not a bug.

So here's the deal, NASA will consider a lake explorer before a crawler, because the science return is a lot greater. Plutonium ain't cheap after all...

>Plutonium ain't cheap after all
Isnt NASA almost out of plutonium? They have fuck all of it because the use it for RTG's and the government wont give them any more

exactly.
>>the government wont give them any more
because the cold war ended and nuclear bombs aren't being made any more. They built a special reactor to produce it, but they are producing fuck all per year

Reminded me of this.

Yeah. Its kinda sad actually, if they run out then no more RTG powered rovers

jesus christ lrn when 2 greentext faggot
lucky for us that venus' atmosphere is mostly CO2, from which we can extract all the O2 we will ever need.

How long until another Cassini–Huygens type mission? Why aren't these types of missions being pumped out annually all over the solar system?

would the scientific community be upset if a rouge state put a bunch of canisters of microorganisms in a space probe and sent it on a crash course to contaminate say europe?

I think any surface probe that isn't just another rover on Mars would be brilliant.

I understand the appeal of the planet, but there are so many other things out there we would like a closer look at.

Well its all this non-proliferation bullshit
Same reason civilian nuclear power sucks

OP here again, NASA haven't at the moment planned any mission.
The next one might be the "Titan mare explorer" (TIME), the goal of this mission would be to
learn more about Titan's sea and more precisely Ligeia Mare (the biggest lake on Titan).

NASA should create a rover like that to explore Titan's sea but a model like this one won't be launched before at least 2020.

Who are you quoting?

>>>will a plutonium source work without bringing the lakes to boil
>no but that might be a feature and not a bug.
Sure? The phase transition will be very very effective in removing heat form the cold end of the heat engine, but at the same time this will cause a lot of currents in the lake and disturb measurements.

>lucky for us that venus' atmosphere is mostly CO2, from which we can extract all the O2 we will ever need.
Not sure if you are serious but that takes as much energy as you get out when you burn the fuel. You could also say there is plenty of oxygen in sea water.

>Isnt NASA almost out of plutonium?
There might be alternatives that can be extracted from already stored spent fuel. Or use a uranium based reactor, that has been tried in satellites already.

>Why aren't these types of missions being pumped out annually all over the solar system?
Some projects like the Mars rovers have been very successful and resources are naturally directed to what already works. Cost-benefit and risk analysis makes that natural choices. That on te other hand leaves less resources for other projects.

The bigger issue with the lake boiling is the gas getting in the props reducing thrust. It's barely gonna cause any currents and measurements? Well you don't do seismometry on a submarine.

Boiling away the lake is not a deal breaker, just an engineering problem

Well if the US made reprocessing legal, then they might be able to get more Pu-238