Comments on Mike Brown's Planets: The long road to a Titan storm

The topic of planets and space has interested me s...

2010-05-26T16:36:50.988-07:00

The topic of planets and space has interested me since childhood. Very interesting post, thank you!

I like the topics about planets, they are very int...

2010-03-08T08:49:30.722-08:00

I like the topics about planets, they are very interesting...this post called The long road to a Titan storm , is very interesting, thanks for sharing!

Fascinating! I'm just imagining weather forecasts ...

2009-09-09T20:11:09.603-07:00

Fascinating! I'm just imagining weather forecasts on Titan:

Today there will be isolated explosions.. chance of methane rain. If you have to go out bring your cryo-umbrella, and don't forget to wear your space suit! Next week, and for several years after, there's no chance of weather at all. Don't forget to wear your space suit!

LOL!

Ahhh… I understand. From my above post you can see...

2009-08-28T15:43:57.181-07:00

Ahhh… I understand. From my above post you can see that I would be one of those friends had I been studying there at the moment. So I believe in your innocence :P

Regards!

Really it isn't worth all the fuss. Mike just like...

2009-08-28T10:23:55.983-07:00

Really it isn't worth all the fuss. Mike just likes to tease me, a lot. One night he came up to see how things were going and my friend Mike (a different Mike) was with me in the dome. He likes to tell the story like I was having some kind of romantic date in the dome but really it was completely innocent. My friends used to come with me occasionally because they thought it was cool.

I'm sure Mike will have more to say about this....

Ah, then you have no problem to tell the story you...

2009-08-28T10:03:09.695-07:00

Ah, then you have no problem to tell the story yourself? :D

I'm really curious…

Late to the party- as always. Mike (and others)-...

2009-08-24T15:27:35.610-07:00

Late to the party- as always.

Mike (and others)- I'm pretty sure they've been looking for lightening and haven't had any luck. There are apparently at least a few reasons why there probably won't be any.

Mikeemmert- those 10000 dalton ions are the source of much of my current focus (and frustration)...we'll figure it out...one of these days...

Sarah (from the roof)

P.S. Mike I would kill you if you told that story, but mostly because you always tell it wrong.

I think its awesome that we now have technology to...

2009-08-21T11:01:53.922-07:00

I think its awesome that we now have technology to actually image features on an astronomical target as tiny as Titan!

Totally OFF TOPIC - but I've just got to let you k...

2009-08-19T12:53:12.003-07:00

Totally OFF TOPIC - but I've just got to let you know Mike that I am hijacking Haumea, Eris, etc, as titles for my new orchestra piece, The Plutoids, in recognition of IYA2009. And it has been a lot of fun!

Neil Thornock

Surface heating, eh? If that's the case the "rece...

2009-08-17T05:14:54.096-07:00

Surface heating, eh? If that's the case the "recession" of clouds may be due to an surface albedo anisotropy...

But the implication that chemical processes may play a role in energy transfer involving the troposphere sends me for a loop! Do we know what Titan looks like in the submillimeter?

Sounds like a job for the GBT!

No evidence of lightning to date. There are many m...

2009-08-17T03:48:51.327-07:00

No evidence of lightning to date. There are many many many Cassini images of the back side of Titan, but, honestly, I do not know if anyone has looked very hard. It'd be a tough project.

Could you use a Galaxy Zoo type of approach? Of course, organising that is a big project, too.

Hi, guys :) (and gals) I posted my own ideas on T...

2009-08-17T03:30:02.820-07:00

Hi, guys :) (and gals)

I posted my own ideas on Titan on my blog:

http://mikeemmert.blogspot.com/

In other news, the short summer session is over and I passed Astronomy and Biology. I haven't gotten my grade back but it's mathematically impossible to have made less than a C. In fact I was in pretty good position to ace Solar System Astronomy.

I had to work really hard at Biology. Frankly I was kind of appalled at how far I'd fallen behind there. Looking at the nitrogenous rings of the DNA molecules sort of reminded me of military explosives like RDX. I learned ATP is actually a rather crummy fuel, the body just makes a lot of it. I found out what happened to my buddy Larry Henson (cystic fibrosis). And me (insulin).

But I didn't find out what happened at Titan. I'm kind of intrigued by the 10000 Dalton negative ions in Titan's stratosphere. Manna from heaven? Or smelly old smog?

Seems hard to do without polar solvents. Let's see...to get from diacetylene to methane needs hydrogen. From...water? Some sort of oily Krebs cycle?

I wouldn't dare to speculate but if somebody else can think of some specific pathway that works at that temperature, well...

That might be as likely as volcanos that follow the seasons from pole to pole across the equator. Either a geological mystery or a biological one.

Pretty exciting stuff!

:)

Michael C. Emmert

I'm liking the space cows idea myself : ) Didn't ...

2009-08-16T00:09:07.102-07:00

I'm liking the space cows idea myself : ) Didn't the story make its way around Twitterverse on your birthday?

Kaden

I was right! It's Saturday, and sure enough, page ...

2009-08-15T15:17:57.540-07:00

I was right! It's Saturday, and sure enough, page 17 in the LA Times indeed has a story. It's well done, except that they only quote me, and not Emily at all. Seems unfair to exclude the actual author of the paper....

I'm surprised that her committee didn't tell Emily...

2009-08-14T15:48:12.604-07:00

I'm surprised that her committee didn't tell Emily Schaller to go back and re-work her dissertation and incorporate the new data :)

Great post -- it's always fun to read the personal side of science that isn't captured in the article in Nature.

Amazing article, indeed. Makes me want to take par...

2009-08-14T14:44:41.138-07:00

Amazing article, indeed. Makes me want to take part in this kind of research as soon as possible. Well, more than usual, at least. I'm currently an Astrophysics undergraduate student.

I was reading the comments about Sarah's job and thinking: "wow, studying in Caltech, looking every night through a 14" telescope to Titan, under a starry sky, and helping to reveal the mysteries of that moon along with professional astronomers… I'd do that, too…"
And then you said you paid her. Damn, I would have been easily fooled to work for free in that project had I been there…! Now I'll have that in mind in case in the future I have a similar opportunity :P

Articles like this are really inspiring, especially for people who aspire like me to do for a living what you describe here. Thanks for that. I really mean it.

Nicely written.. science with a personal touch :)....

2009-08-14T09:15:46.320-07:00

Nicely written.. science with a personal touch :).. brilliant..

Since there's so much rampant speculation in this ...

2009-08-13T12:50:54.683-07:00

Since there's so much rampant speculation in this article, I was wondering if you can apply it to what led to the cloudless days on Titan. Was it the possible absence of methane "burps"? Could it have been a result of the seasonal changes, as the Southern hemisphere wasn't heated by the sun as much anymore?

Keith_S: Not impossible that something would be se...

2009-08-13T06:59:44.735-07:00

Keith_S: Not impossible that something would be seismically detectable. Sadly, Huygens only lasted a few hours!

Cool story, would a methane "burp" vibrations be d...

2009-08-13T06:56:42.665-07:00

Cool story, would a methane "burp" vibrations be detectable? I don't suppose the Huygens probe had a seismometer/seismograph?
Thanks.

Clive: We paid her! Ah but there is a funny story....

2009-08-13T06:40:33.652-07:00

Clive: We paid her! Ah but there is a funny story. Too bad Sarah would kill me if I told it.

Chuck: It's a great idea, but we've got the wrong equipment. You need higher resolution and longer wavelength. So we're not sensitive.

Daniel: No evidence of lightning to date. There are many many many Cassini images of the back side of Titan, but, honestly, I do not know if anyone has looked very hard. It'd be a tough project. But. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Fascinating story! I've always been interested in ...

2009-08-13T04:31:13.723-07:00

Fascinating story! I've always been interested in Titan, especially the history of the people who discovered it.

Has there been any evidence of lighting in these clouds? As far as I know, lightning only occurs on Earth, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.

Daniel Snyder

can your Titanean spectroscopy differentiate the C...

2009-08-13T03:50:03.391-07:00

can your Titanean spectroscopy differentiate the C-H and C-D bonds in methane?

If Titan's atmosphere is photodissociating and preferentially losing the light H isotope over time, you would expect burps from the interior to have a higher H/D ratio than the rest of the atmosphere.

Fantastic article but you guys have no sense of ch...

2009-08-13T00:28:27.211-07:00

Fantastic article but you guys have no sense of chivalry. How can you let the woman sit on the friggen roof all night??

I wish Huygens was still alive. I had a strange d...

2009-08-12T22:31:48.611-07:00

I wish Huygens was still alive.

I had a strange dream about Titan many years ago. I was director of the Huygens mission and the ship plopped down into a liquid to the accompaniment of great cheers from the staff in the control room. Presently, a huge monster rose from the deep and swallowed the ship.

A sad groan erupted from the assembled technicians. But I looked down and we were still getting a signal! The creature was transparent to radio waves!

"Where is the best possible place on this planet we could have this probe?"

And then I woke up...