Description
Transcript: Saturn's Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system. With a diameter just over 5,100 kilometers it is four times larger than the next largest of Saturn's moons, 40 percent of the diameter of Earth. Yet its pressure at the base of its atmosphere is 60 percent larger than the Earth's pressure, and its atmosphere is composed mostly of nitrogen like the Earth. But unlike the Earth, due to the large distance from the sun, Titan is very cold with a temperature of 95 Kelvin or -290 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmosphere appears as a featureless orange haze, much like a smog situation. In addition to nitrogen there are minor constituents of organic materials such as methane, ethane, acetylene, ethylene, and hydrogen cyanide. The pressure and temperature near the surface are at a place where methane can exist as a gas, a liquid, or a solid, and so it's likely that there's rain or snow of organic compounds and methane itself in the atmosphere. Scientists are virtually certain that there are liquid methane and ethane oceans or lakes on the surface of Titan, making it a very exciting world in the outer solar system for us to explore.
Transcript: Jupiter's Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system, just under 5,300 kilometers in diameter. That's 8 percent larger than Mercury and twice the size of tiny Pluto. Ganymede has an old fractured surface covered in groves and fissures. This dark surface is heavily cratered...
Published 07/21/11
Transcript: There are many types of interplanetary bodies, and they contain important clues as to the formation and evolution of the solar system. Interplanetary bodies range in size from 1,000 kilometers to chunks of rock the size of a house and smaller. They range in composition from icy to...
Published 07/21/11
Transcript: Several hundred years ago the astronomer J. Bode noticed a peculiar thing about the spacings and distances of the planets from the Sun. If, for example, you take a sequence of numbers that double, add four to each one and divide by ten you end up almost exactly predicting the...
Published 07/21/11