Astronomy questions?

Question

Why Titan & Not Europa?
1. If scientist are looking for water why did they send a probe to Titan first! These missions take so long I hate waiting!

Comment:We'll never see Pluto if the Mayans are right about 2012.

2.Have scientist compared the Great Red spot with Neptunes brief Great dark spot?

3.Why do they think life can ever be sustained on Mars when the core is dead?

4.Why haven't they sent the Mars rovers to cydonia to shut everyone up and to the polar caps to sample the snow. Those are no brainers!

Both Mars & Venus have dead cores,
4. What are Astro geologist studying about their contrast to predict patterns on earth?

Answer 1

Titan has, in the eyes of the scientific community, the best possibility of having life, as it has its own atmosphere and is loaded with hydrocarbons, the basic building blocks of life here on Earth.

Europa MAY have liquid water, but any probe reaching it would have to bore through the thick ice crust to see if there was liquid water available. Right now, there is a fiery debate as to whether seeming upwelling ice is being caused by warm water under the ice crust, or pressure faulting forcing it to the surface.

Bluntly, Europa would be prohibitively expensive, with no guarantee of results of any kind. Logically, Titan was the best selection.

The Great Red Spot of Jupiter has been observed for several hundred years, and scientists still are uncertain as to what it is. They think it is a long-lasting storm of some sort.

The dark spot on Neptune appeared to be a short-lived atmospheric phenomenon like the Red Spot, but it didn't remain visible long enough for a good look.

As for sustaining life on Mars, the dead core isn't the biggest issue - greater issues are: little oxygen; very low atmospheric pressure; monstrous sandstorms that can last for months; huge temperature extremes between day and night; little if any free water to be had; weak magnetic field allowing hard radiation to reach the surface, just to name a few.

The composition of the polar of Mars can be determined by analyzing reflected light, or even from orbiting satellites. No need for a hugely expensive probe to go there.

As for the "face" on Cydonia (I think this is what you were referring to), numerous photos have shown it to be an interesting rock formation, which under different angles of sunlight doesn't look like a face at all, but is composed of eroded rock formations.

FInally, analyzing Martian and Venusian cores wouldn't do much good, as the core of the Earth is still hot enough to keep plate tectonics going for millions of years. Besides, geologists and planetary physicists barely understand plate tectonics HERE let alone what is going on with dead planets.

Add to that the fact that they still have no proven idea as to the composition of our planet's inner mantle, outer core and inner core, and you can understand the magnitude of the problem somewhat. :)

Foxfire

Answer 2

1. Because Titan is the most likely place in this solar system for there to be water (I can assure you that they would have spent a lot of time looking into this - longer than you have I'm sure).
2. They probably have - but it's just a storm - so what? They are more interested in other things.
3. They think that through pollution an atmosphere could be created that would hold a weather system (rain and wind etc.) and that this would create water (from the rain etc.). Though this process would take a long time, many scientists feel we need other planets to live on, or use for resources at least, giving the shocking rate of how fast we are using resources on Earth (not just oil etc. but silver, copper, etc.)
4. There is no snow on the polar caps - ice. (snow needs it to be snowing - there is no weather system on mars). They probably will, but these missions take a long time to get going. They have to calculate the paths, build the robot, test and fit equiptment etc. And given the failings of the last mars landing, they will probably take some time thinking over the next one.
5. To see what will happen to our planet in the future. What caused these cores, and how it may effect us.

Answer 3

1. The Galileo mission spent many years orbiting Jupiter and investigating the major moons. It was planned in the 1980s following the Voyager fly-bys and launched in 1989. The Cassini mission was planned in a similar time frame and was a natural follow-on to Voyager for the Saturnian system. Titan had long been known to have a thick nitrogen atmosphere laced with hydrocarbons. Voyager's cameras could not penetrate Titan's haze. Cassini and Huygens were designed specifically because Titan was and is such an interesting target. Several follow-on missions to the Jovian system have been proposed, with a particular focus on Europa but all of these things take time and money so it needs a workable plan that fits within spending priorities.

2. pass

3. pass

4. The rovers were only designed to travel 600 meters, it's astounding they've lasted as long as they have and clocked up as much as 10 km. The landing sites were chosen because of evidence of water and the safety margin of the landing zone, among other things. The MOC2 on Mars Global Surveyor took many high-resolution images of Cydonia during its mission. As for the polar caps, these were the target of the 1999 Mars Polar Lander which is believed to have crashed, probably due to an erroneous triggering of the "drop" phase of the landing program.

4a. My understanding is that many planetary scientists are looking at the differences between Venus, Earth and Mars to understand how conditions on these three bodies have changed over the lifetime of the Solar System.

Answer 4

Oh, so sad that nobody is responding to your questions. I don't know what scientists hope to accomplish by even looking for life sustainable conditions on other terrestrial bodies. Earth is us humans' home. Nobody would be happy if they couldn't look side to see trees and animals and other forms of life. In my opinion all this reasearch is just a waste of money that could be spent on other things. I don't mean to insult you with that comment, it is obvious you are very intelligent on these astronomy issues. I am just stating my opinion.

Answer 5

Almost all of the most acute minds in all of human history have been recounted as half freakin' brilliant in their field of studies, and half retarded when it comes to DOING stuff with their plans AND human interaction.