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EXTRATERRESTRIAL:
Cassini Titan probe to help understand Earth, Mars
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Plans have just been finalized for the Cassini spacecraft's exploration of Saturn's moon Titan, a giant world with a composition that resembles early Earth. Scientists expect the distant moon to help them understand the general nature of wind, oceans and how things might once have been on our home planet as well as Mars.
The investigation, which gets underway this summer, could also help theorists better model Earth's changing climate and the ultimate effects of global warming.
Titan is half the size of Earth and the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere, which is loaded with methane and, like Earth's air, some nitrogen.
Ralph Lorenz, of the Lunar and Planetary Lab University of Arizona, presented the finished exploration plan over the weekend in Seattle at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It calls for 44 flybys of Titan over four years by Cassini after it arrives at Saturn this July. The craft will also deploy a probe to the surface of the moon next year.
Last week, Lorenz discussed with SPACE.com what he and colleagues hope to learn from Titan.
He explained that wind, waves and ocean currents are well understood only as they relate to current conditions on Earth. Scientists want to better grasp the underlying physics -- including what happens in wildly different conditions -- so they can predict how the natural world would react to change.
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