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| Titan's Haze (NASA Photo) |
It used to be that Earthlings turned to Key West, Florida for some extraordinary sunsets. These days, however, Saturn’s moon Titan is the place to be.
Ian O’Neill of Discovery
News reports that there’s quite a bit to be learned from checking out these Titanic sunsets. By
analyzing the refracted light that results from transit events “as Titan blocks
our sun from view,” scientists can gain a better understanding of exoplanet atmospheres.
NASA’s Cassini mission is analyzing data from four such transit events, providing “results that include the complex effects due to hazes.” The focus is on “Titan’s uppermost atmospheric haze” because its lower atmosphere “blocks the sunlight, preventing a spectra from being recorded.”
Although it had been previously assumed that “high-altitude atmospheric gases affect all wavelengths of starlight in the same way,” the Cassini mission has instead found “that the haze more strongly affects shorter (bluer) wavelengths.”
This has led researcher Mark Marley to conclude: People had dreamed up
rules for how planets would behave when seen
in transit, but Titan didn’t get the memo.
Resources
http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/titans-hazy-sunsets-shed-light-on-alien-atmospheres-140527.htm
Copyright May 29, 2014 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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