Titan's organic cloud.An infrared detector on the Cassini spacecraft has imaged a huge cloud that engulfs most of the north pole of Saturn's icy moon Titan. Particles of ethane ethane (ĕth`ān), CH3CH3, gaseous hydrocarbon. It is a continuous-chain alkane. As a constituent of natural gas, it is used for fuel. It can be prepared by cracking and fractional distillation of petroleum. , methane, and other organic compounds in the cloud Refers to the operation taking place within a network. See cloud. could be a source of the liquid hydrocarbon--most likely methane--that makes up the lakes that Cassini's radar detector recently found near the moon's north pole (SN: 8/5/06, p. 83). Methane may cycle back and forth between the lakes and the cloud, just as water recycles between the atmosphere and surface of Earth. Ellen Stofan of the University College London “UCL” redirects here. For other uses, see UCL (disambiguation). University College London, commonly known as UCL, is the oldest multi-faculty constituent college of the University of London, one of the two original founding colleges, and the first British and Proxemy Research in Rectortown, Va., and her colleagues describe details of the lakes in the Jan. 4 Nature. The cloud is roughly 2,400 kilometers in diameter and extends from the pole to latitude 62[degrees] north. The craft's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer imaged the cloud during a Titan flyby fly·by also fly-by n. pl. fly·bys A flight passing close to a specified target or position, especially a maneuver in which a spacecraft or satellite passes sufficiently close to a body to make detailed observations without on Dec. 29, 2006, and saw it again on Jan. 13. NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. released an image from the earlier set of observations on Feb. l. Observations from Earth show that Titan's clouds wax and wane with the moon's seasons, each of which lasts about 7 Earth years. As winter comes to the southern reaches of Titan, the clouds and lakes will probably migrate from the north pole to the south, says Cassini researcher Christophe Sotin of the University of Nantes The University of Nantes is a well-known French university, located in the city of Nantes. Currently, it is attended by approximately 32,000 students, of which the vast majority are French. It is the second largest university in France. in France. The craft will fly past Titan 16 more times this year, enabling scientists to track the cloud's evolution.--R.C |
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