thursday, april 29, 2004
news
the university daily kansan 5A
Cassini to enter Titan atmosphere
Professors await space probe data on Saturn moon
By Becca Evanhoe
bevanhoe@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
A piece of metal flies toward a cold, strange moon. This metallic mass, zooming at speeds of 10,000 miles per hour, is not a random chunk of space rock, but a carefully crafted machine
The orbiting instrument is headed toward Titan, Saturn's largest moon. It is on a mission: to skim through Titan's atmosphere, scoop up samples of the atmosphere and figure out what it's holding.
holding. University of Kansas professor of physics and astronomy Tom Cravens is preparing to receive data about the gases the machine is collecting.
"The main question I want to answer is how does this gunk develop?" Craven said.
Saturn and Titan are the destinations of the Cassini space probe, a NASA satellite launched nearly seven years ago. Scheduled to enter Saturn's orbit on the last day of June, Cassini will soon be information about Titan's atmosphere to Earth. Titan is the only moon in the solar system known to have a dense atmosphere. This atmosphere is thick with a soup of molecules made of carbon and hydrogen, which scientists on Earth associate with living creatures.
Below its atmosphere, Titan's surface may be dotted with pools of petroleum, in the same way Minnesota is dotted with lakes.
"It's not a surprise to see carbon in the environment. But the production of carbon in the atmosphere is very important to see how the carbon molecules are changed into things we associate with living materials."
Jerry Manweiler courtesy lecturer of physics and astronomy/
But the haze of gases shrouds Titan's surface in mystery.
Cravens and teammates look at the data from one of Cassini's instruments, called the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer, or INMS. The instrument will sort by mass the various molecules scooped from Titan's atmosphere and describe the specific molecules to the scientists.
From remote sensing on Earth, scientists know that Titan's atmosphere contains methane, a chief chemical in natural gas; acetylene, the fuel for welding torches; propane, used to heat homes; and petroleum, a mix of all these and others in liquid form.
Methane is the simplest carbon-containing molecule, made from just one carbon atom. But gases such as propane and acetylene contain multiple carbon atoms linked together in chains.
atoms interact together With long-chain carbon-based molecules "you're on your way to biology," said Tom Armstrong, a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy, who is an
Craven 's Certainly Titan's environment is really open to wild speculation. " he said.
investigator on a Cassini mission called M1M1, separate from Cravens'.
The petroleum deposits found on Earth are the molecular leftovers from bodies of creatures that once lived millions of years ago. But because Titan's cold atmosphere most likely never supported life, Cravens and his team question which chemical processes, rather than biological, formed them.
Jerry Manweiler, courtesy lecturer of physics and astronomy, said it was important to remember that carbon was a naturally occurring element; living things didn't produce carbon atoms. Rather, some living things can produce longer molecules.
produce longer time to see carbon in the environment," Manweiler said, who worked with Armstrong on a different aspect of the Cassini mission."But the production of carbon in the atmosphere is very important to see how the carbon molecules are changed into things we associate with living materials."
During the 1990s, Cravens published research on computer models of how this might happen. The models are based on chemical reactions triggered by sunlight — a process similar to how smog in Los Angeles forms from hydrocarbons, he said.
The energy in the sunlight breaks apart simple methane molecules, which attach to other molecules and build up long chains, like Legos sticking together.
"We'll see how similar it really is to Los Angeles," Cravens said.
"But the difference on Titan is that the temperature is 90 degrees Kelvin," or about negative 275 degrees Fahrenheit — a far cry from the warm Los Angeles climate.
Cravens said the currently-existing models, including those developed at the University, gave scientists some idea of what was happening on Titan, but they didn't give the full story.
"I don't expect they'll be exactly correct. That would be disappointing, in a way," he said.
It will take years to piece the puzzle together, because the Cassini space probe must scoop up different samples from all across Titan. Only after testing the moon's atmosphere in a wide range of locations can the scientists figure out what Titan is like.
Cravens explained by comparing Titan to Earth. Northern Canada during the winter and New Mexico during the summer are different, so looking at just one location won't give the full picture. Only by looking at both places could you answer what Earth is really like; it's the same thing with Titan, he said.
thing will Cassini will be grabbing samples of gases during the next four years, and Cravens' team will spend the next several years looking at the data.
While the team will most likely answer the puzzle of Titan's atmosphere with chemistry, the mystery isn't solved yet.
mystery isn't so hard. "Is there life on Titan? The answer is probably not," Armstrong said. "But it's sure interesting, because life arises given the slightest opportunity."
— Edited by Guillaume Doane
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