Swapping out Mars for Titan... - http://clapway.com/2015/06/23/forget-mars-were-moving-to-saturns-moon-titan/

Our planet is the most amazing miracle. Not even just ours, but planets in general. Space has always interested me. You might have seen my blog on the most interesting Black Holes recently, so you know all about my youth as a space nerd. If you don’t, check it out. Black holes are insane. Anyway, so I was a space nerd and I know I’m not the only one either. Ancient Aliens on the History Channel is doing quite well in their ratings.

One of my favorite family trips was to the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas. They would have special viewings and events and such, and one year when we went, I got to see Saturn. I have to tell you that from what I saw in that telescope, Saturn is just amazing. It’s so beautiful! While I don’t think any other planet compares to Earth when talking about beauty, (who can forget about the amazing sunsets we see and places like the Grand Canyon or the beaches of Greece?) Saturn came close. But what I’ve learned about Saturn’s moon, Titan might make it my second favorite rock.

Saturn’s Moon, Titan, Has More Earth Like Similarities

Scientists previously made a huge discovery that some of you, like myself, might’ve missed. Apparently, Saturn’s moon, Titan was found to have actual liquid on its surface. It houses a sea made of liquid methane. Not an ideal location to start planting your farm or anything, but it’s a pretty awesome discovery. Now, scientists are thinking that Titan might actually have an internal ocean made of water and ammonia. Massive movement of surface structures suggested that they had been resting on liquid. This theory hasn’t yet been fully proven, but they’re confident that it’s there and making changes to the surface of the moon.

Mars or Titan: Where will you build your new home?

Recent research suggested that Mars at one point might have had living organisms on it. Signs of water have been found and according to NASA, Mars might’ve had as much water as Earth’s Arctic Ocean. These new discoveries show not only an amazing advancement in our technology, but in our knowledge of the solar system we are a part of.

I think I’ll stay on Earth a bit longer, I kind of like it here. But won’t it be cool when we eventually see not only flights to Mars, but to Titan too. Would you take the opportunity to live on another planet? 

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Filmin has a product for your long-distance Saturn-Earth romances:

Forget Mars, We’re Moving to Saturn’s Moon, Titan

New Dust Ring Around Saturn Is The Biggest In The Solar System And Is Now Fully Visible For The First Time - http://clapway.com/2015/06/11/new-dust-ring-around-saturn-is-the-biggest-in-the-solar-system-and-is-now-fully-visible-for-the-first-time-678/

Saturn and its dust rings are already well established within common knowledge of planets in our solar system. However, we’ve never been able to fully get a perfect look at one of the newest ones. Now, thanks to a team of University of Maryland, University of Virginia and California Institute of Technology researchers, we have finally found a way to reveal this new ring, called the Phoebe ring, in all of its glory. They also discovered that this ring is the biggest is the entire solar system.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE PHOEBE RING

“For the first time ever, we have the ring image in its entirety,” University of Maryland’s Douglas Hamilton said proudly. But he was not alone, as University of Virginia’s Michael Skrutskie and CalTech’s Anne Verbiscer also stumbled upon the ring along with him.

“We know how big this ring is now and we didn’t before,” Hamilton continued. “The outer edge is starting to give us interesting information about what is happening inside the ring, the forces and processes that make it function.”

DETAILS OF THE PHOEBE RING ITSELF

This new ring around Saturn was originally discovered back in 2009, and currently rests at the far ends of the Saturnian system, with an orbit tilted 27 degrees from its main ring plane. A large portion of its material begins nearly 4 million miles away from the planet and extends outward roughly 7.4 million miles. To illustrate its massive size, it’d take about a billion Earths placed directly next to each other to fill the voluminous ring. Hamilton and his colleagues theorize that the material for the ring comes from one of the moons farthest from Saturn, Phoebe – hence the ring’s name.

And with some additional information on the particles, the researchers were able to gain solid proof that this new ring is the reason Saturn’s moon’s Iapetus happens to be shaded darkly on one side and bright on the other. The astronomer Giovanni Cassini was the first person ever to have spotted the moon, centuries ago in 1671, and years later discovered it has a dark side, which is now named Cassini Regio, in his honor.

“The Phoebe ring is absolutely immense and so it’s huge wide open spaces and very few particles,” Hamilton said. “What this means is the collision times are really, really long so the lifetime of these particles can be millions of years or billions of years depending on the sizes.”

WAS THERE EVIDENCE OF THE PHOEBE RING’S EXISTENCE BEFORE THIS?

One of the moons of Saturn, Iapetus, gave evidence of the existence of the ring before that structure was seen by astronomers. This satellite, covered in ice, is in a tidal lock with Saturn. Much like Earth’s moon, Iapetus always has a side which faces its home planet. As it orbits around the planet of Saturn, astronomers discovered the side that leads is covered in dark material, while the side that follows is completely white, which is understandable considering the ice. What this told researches is that the moon was traveling right through a large cloud of dust, which was collecting on the leading face.

 

 

Here’s a fun way to teach your kids about space and science.

New Dust Ring Around Saturn Is The Biggest In The Solar System And Is Now Fully Visible For The First Time