"Actually wrote a paper explaining why we probably wouldn't find sand dunes on Titan, which was spectacularly wrong."-Ralph Lorenz
Skip ahead to 3:40. Introductions prior.
Ralph Lorenz is a good and regular speaker. He has a book on Titan, which I recommend. This LPI is four years old which means he had a year to mull things over prior to this talk.
This LPI is well detailed with lots of good slides. Very self informative so I don't need to set it up much. If you like Titan, you should enjoy it.
- Slide at 7:16. If you are unaware of it, Titan has a more chemically complex atmosphere than Earth, and maybe Venus too. That's a big deal, because it means we can't stick our necks out and make too many hard statements about what the alien atmosphere can and can't do. There's certainly new weirdness to be explored.
- 16:15, He solicits the documentary Destination:Titan, A BBC documentary featuring his younger self. It's certainly worth the watch and covers the development of the Huygens probe.
- 22:54, Comparing Titans dunes to the Namib. A single very periodic river ends the dunes in the Namib. Keep in mind ending dunes only has to be something that operates at about the same speed as they travel. One storm a year can do it. Other things could too, albeit less likely things. But dead-end dunes can be evidence for weather on other worlds.
- 28:05, When Cassini flew around Saturn then came to Titan they would expect the North Pole to be in a predictable reliable place. It wasn't. They were tying to get better radar coverage and image spaces they haven't. They kept missing the target. That lead to an announcement that Titans crust was detached from Titans core, by a deep global interior ocean.
- 44:55. The disappearing island, which I'll assume you've heard of, is best explained by a radar anomaly. Radar reflects dark and well off smooth surfaces, white and grainy off rough surfaces. The disappearing island is likely a stormy patch of sea.
- 52:15, Acrylonitrile. The potential life forming molecule that Titan has. Not long prior Lorenz was speaking of "salts" as the more volatile molecules evaporate. What do the "salts" and other compounds left behind do when concentrated? Something, otherwise they would talk about 'salty basins' in these lectures, which so far they don't.
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