Saturday, March 22, 2008

The Oceans of Titan



A Methane sea above a Water sea. A damn fascinating world, is Titan.
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4 comments:

My Frontier Thesis said...

Absolutely fascinating, AA. As always, with water comes the prospect of micro-organisms.

3/22/2008 9:47 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...

Did you ever sea the sci-fi flick "Gattaca"?
It was a thoughtful, well crafted, perhaps "bookish" film. Although its focus was on the problem of genetics becoming the measure of men, its spiritual thrust [and I use the word "spiritual" advisedly] comes from a young astronauts passion for a voyage to Titan.
In 1997, the year of the flick, Titan was just a shrouded mystery. Today, it is stranger and more wonderful than I'd ever imagined.

3/22/2008 10:14 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...

Yes, if I'm thinking of the same movie, it was great. Didn't it involve a group of humans who, through genetics, were decidedly more fit for space exploration, thus relegating the rest of the populace to an existence on earth?

Yup. I just Yahoo!'d (now a verb) it. Great movie. Uma Thurman is in it too. Not bad, not bad at all.

Perhaps I've already mentioned this, but last week I caught a National Geographic program that documented NASA's interest in comets. Not long ago, NASA shot a satellite into some comet, and they were able to figure out its mineral/element properties. They kept using the phrase "liquid water," which somewhat confused me — isn't water liquid already? Anyhow, comets certainly have ice, and this means they might be carrying micro-organisms.

Couple that with me reading Darwin's Descent of Man, and now I start thinking about micro-organisms arriving to earth some billions of years ago via comet... and... behold... man? Ecce Homo? I've been feeling rather alien since. Would JJ let me stay in America if it turns out I'm an alien?

3/23/2008 12:43 AM
My Frontier Thesis said...

In 1997, the year of the flick, Titan was just a shrouded mystery. Today, it is stranger and more wonderful than I'd ever imagined.

Yeah, but I'm still pressing JJ and his physics colleagues: where are the floating fucking cars?

3/23/2008 12:44 AM

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