Well, while I’m still riding the Internet-fame explosion from my last post, I’m just going to throw out there that I think this is much cooler:
Solar Reflections off a Titanian Lake
Anyway, on my new To Do list are:
- Finish short story based on the hard-science space battle concepts (and thank you to all the comments!)
- Sketch models of the starfighters for said story now that I’m decent in SketchUp
- Write more Cathedral Galaxy stories
I just saw the AGU talk about that observation. Very cool stuff, though the dude sitting behind me grumbled that it might be glint off of methane ice.
Seems to me like it would have too large a spatial extent to be a glint off of ice. I mean, the ice would have to be flat over that whole area to make that reflection, right? I suppose the atmosphere is fuzzing out the reflection quite a bit, but still, so we expect to find large, flat expanses of ice near Titan’s poles?
I think the guy was just being overly skeptical. The fact that we see the lakes in the southern hemisphere change size and appear and disappear in conjunction with convective storm clouds makes a pretty darn good case for liquid.