A boat to sail a lake on a Saturnian moon…

10 comments to A boat to sail a lake on a Saturnian moon…

• BlueCatShip

  October 10, 2012 at 1:42 am Log in to Reply

  Let’s hope the neighbors are friendly. They seem to have plenty of CHON. I seem to recall speculation that there might be warm spots under there in liquid water, and perhaps there could be life there. Then again, just because it’s too cold on the surface for present-day Earth life, doesn’t necessarily mean Titan, if it has life, has to play by Earth rules. Hydrocarbons and liquid water sounds like primordial soup to me. Let it cook for 4.5 billion years or so and something might be in residence. Or someone, several someones. There goes the neighborhood. And if and when we do find any life anywhere else, that’s going to shake up quite a few human-type people’s worldviews. Possibly a few alien-type people’s worldviews, come to that. My cat, however, is unperturbed. Any and all new neighbors will have to adjust to cats, and not the other way around!

  Paddle-wheel boat? Sailboat? Tall ship and a star to steer her by? If it’s good enough for a Mississippi riverboat *and* the English and American navies, well, no worries.

  Titan, though, gotta say the line: “Release the Kraken!”

• dhawktx

  October 10, 2012 at 6:05 pm Log in to Reply

  And if we DON’T find life, but find submerged volcanic vents with enough heat to sustain life such as WE have around our deep ocean vents… do we seed that moon with life?

• BlueCatShip

  October 10, 2012 at 9:48 pm Log in to Reply

  They’d probably mine it for resources before trying to seed it.

  What if what they find is a kind of life we hadn’t thought of?

  Interesting FTL article too. That singularity at C where things go DNE Undefined is problematic, but…if there’s some other way of describing things as they approach the limit from either side, then maybe it’s not such a problem. Don’t look at me, though. I did fine with calculus but dismally at physics.

  The article seems to imply they think there’s another dimension/reality above C that might well have its own way of doing things, rather inverse to our own. I suppose that’s one way to go about artificial weight loss…..

• WOL

  October 11, 2012 at 4:36 am Log in to Reply

  Speaking of boats, thought you’d enjoy this:
  http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2012/10/the-unsolved-mystery-of-the-tunnels-at-baiae/

• CJ

  October 12, 2012 at 8:05 am Log in to Reply

  The actual access to the Styx…fascinating. I’d concur. Vergil knew this area well, and his trip to the underworld in the Aeneid is surely colored by a visit to this place.

• BlueCatShip

  October 13, 2012 at 4:15 pm Log in to Reply

  I wonder if they’ll see any Tralfamadorians?

• tulrose

  October 17, 2012 at 9:01 am Log in to Reply

  For want of a better place to put this: Astronomers find a “Tatooine” alien planet.

  http://www.space.com/18065-alien-planet-tatooine-twin-suns-stars.html

  • Jaxartes

    October 17, 2012 at 12:00 pm Log in to Reply

    Re BCS and artificial weight loss: Eat tachyons, they’re the other kind of fast(ing).

    Re Tulrose: It seems every time they find a possible planet in a multiple star system (and there are a *lot* of multiple star systems) the media mention “Tatooine.”

    • tulrose

      October 17, 2012 at 12:04 pm Log in to Reply

      It’s all they know

• CJ

  October 17, 2012 at 10:33 pm Log in to Reply

  AND—there’s a planet at Alpha Cent. Ir’s too close to its sun, too hot, but that should mean there’s a planetary disc.
  And Ep Eri (Viking) has 2, count ‘em, 2, asteroid belts. Pretty good I sited a mining colony there, eh?
  But UV Ceti, not to be confused with Tau Ceti (Downbelow) is flare star, which the abiliry to jump magnitudes in under a minute. YOu would not want to linger there, and it would give the Downers some nice views of a suddenly extremely brightening star.