Even after a decade of interloping among the Saturnian system, the Cassini spacecraft is still doing great science. It helps that there are lots of places to visit, since Saturn has 62 moons and the largest ring system of the gas giants. Arguably the best science has come from Saturn’s largest moon Titan, second largest moon in the solar system (behind Ganymede) and the only moon known to have an atmosphere. Since Cassini has been in orbit around Saturn and it’s system of moons, it’s been revealed that over 1.6 million square kilometers of Titan’s surface are covered in liquid...
If there’s one difference I notice between Science and Religion, it’s that when questions come up and something unexpected flies in the face of a well-established principle, Science gets excited, Religion gets defensive. I’m always on the lookout for new data that causes us to rethink the ideas we have, and when I find something, I get excited because it means we’ve found something that has been elusive for a long time. Isaac Asimov said it best: The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny…’ – Isaac Asimov...
One of the most important science goals of the Rosetta mission is to determine the conditions in the early solar system, as well as the element abundance and climate that led to the development of life on Earth. By studying a comet that has been isolated in Space for 4.5 Billion years, we can learn about the formation of the Solar System and the origin of the raw materials for life on Earth. The Earth was thought to be so warm when it formed that any water would have evaporated away into space. If so, where did our vast oceans come...
