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NASA has found hydrocarbon-filled canyons on Titan:
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found deep, steep-sided canyons on Saturn's moon Titan that are flooded with liquid hydrocarbons. The finding represents the first direct evidence of the presence of liquid-filled channels on Titan, as well as the first observation of canyons hundreds of meters deep.
A new paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters describes how scientists analyzed Cassini data from a close pass the spacecraft made over Titan in May 2013. During the flyby, Cassini's radar instrument focused on channels that branch out from the large, northern sea Ligeia Mare.
The Cassini observations reveal that the channels -- in particular, a network of them named Vid Flumina -- are narrow canyons, generally less than half a mile (a bit less than a kilometer) wide, with slopes steeper than 40 degrees. The canyons also are quite deep -- those measured are 790 to 1,870 feet (240 to 570 meters) from top to bottom.
Liquid-filled canyons on Titan (open, DOI: 10.1002/2016GL069679)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @11:21AM
I have been an astrophysicist by profession for the past 10 years. NASA story is fake. All of it.
The Earth is not a planet: the Earth is a REALM. There ARE no planets (at least not in the spinning ball sense, a crapton of miles away)
Do not take my AC statement for it: grab a telescope or theodolite, set it up close to the surface of the sea or a lake, train it someplace away and have your jaw drop by being unable to find ANY curvature, EVER.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @12:54PM
Not sure if this post is trying to be a troll attempt or not.
Telescope? Hell, climb high enough and you can see the curve of the horizon with your naked high. Of course you'll probably just try to claim that to be an optical illusion anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @09:26PM
Not sure if this post is trying to be a troll attempt or not.
I assure you brother, this post is no troll. This is not a joke.
Telescope?
Yes, telescope. Climbing to a mountain and 'eyeballing' it, as you suggest, is prone to subjectivity errors. Because it is true, as you suggest, that you tend to see what you want to see. But setting up a mere x200 amateur telescope near the surface of a lake or the ocean, is less so: the surface of the water is to follow the equipotential curve as dictated by the theory of gravity, making your experiment more valuable and more objective. Are those 5.5 feet really hidden when you set up your telescope 3 feet from the level of the water, and train it on a target 5 miles away? How about 10 feet high, and a target 10 miles away? That should hide 25 feet behind the curvature. Does it?