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November 04, 2009

Lecture 29: The Children of Saturn

46 minutes

Among the 61 known moons of Saturn, two stand out: Enceladus and Titan.

Giant Titan is the only moon in our Solar System with a substantial

atmosphere, composed of nitrogen and methane, dense enough to maintain a

weather cycle with methane analogous to the water cycle on Earth, even

including great lakes of liquid methane and ethane at the poles.

Enceladus has fountains of water vapor and ice particles that coat its

surface in fresh ices, and indicates the presence of liquid water

beneath its icy surface. Is this just pockets of tidal-heated water, or

hints of a deep global liquid water ocean. I will describe new results

on these two children of Saturn, and the possibilities they have for

finding life, or life-like conditions, elsewhere in our Solar System.

Recorded live on 2009 Nov 4 in Room 1005 Smith Laboratory on the

Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.

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By Richard Pogge