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| Posted by: TheMatrix on
Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 09:56
AM | 
BBC:
A scientist has worked out what a waterfall
might sound like in space, ahead of a mission
that could find oceans on Saturn's largest moon.
Read more and LISTEN TO THE
SOUNDS
Professor Tim Leighton, of
Southampton University, recorded a waterfall in
Hampshire and worked out the soundwaves a
similar fall of liquid methane would make on the
moon Titan. He was inspired by the international
Cassini-Huygens mission, which could prove him
right when its lander reaches the ringed
planet's mysterious satellite. It is believed
Titan could be home to oceans and streams of
liquid ethane and methane. The Huygens probe,
which was developed by the European Space Agency
(Esa), has been attached to the side of the main
Cassini spacecraft during its
six-and-a-half-year-long journey through the
Solar System.
Huygens will separate from
its mother craft on Christmas Day this year and
touch down on Titan on 14 January, 2005.
Scientists are keen to examine Titan's
atmosphere, as it is believed it may resemble
the primordial one on Earth before life evolved.
Its atmosphere is mostly made up of nitrogen -
just like Earth - but much colder at minus 180C.
Professor Leighton embarked on his research
after seeing a painting of a "fall" of liquid
hydrocarbons on Titan that was commissioned by
the US space agency (Nasa) to celebrate the
mission.
Turn up the volume
The
professor, who is a lecturer in ultrasonics and
underwater acoustics, recorded water crashing
down the Salmon Leap waterfall in the New Forest
town of Romsey, just outside Southampton. He and
colleague Dr Paul White then used an equation
based on the relative properties of water and
methane and the atmosphere on Titan to transform
the soundwaves made by each bubble. Professor
Leighton says that discovering a sea on Titan
would be a major achievement for the Huygens
mission - with the sound of a splash or even a
methane fall a way to do so, if it can be
recognised.
He told BBC News Online: "If
there is a splash and not a crunch when the
probe lands, that would make Titan the first
known body other than Earth to have an ocean
open to an atmosphere. "This would mean there
could be babbling brooks and streams; and a
beach at minus 180C, lapped by an ocean of
liquid cooking gas. "But will the noise of
splashing, which is so familiar to us on Earth,
be recognisable in those conditions? "Nasa's
specially commissioned painting of a waterfall -
actually a methane fall - on Titan inspired me
to attempt to predict how it would sound. "I
want the Huygens team to fully exploit the
probe's microphone during the three minutes it
will spend on the surface of Titan.
"A
microphone uses so little satellite time and
battery power, and is so sturdy, that I urge Esa
and Nasa to consider ranking it up the list of
priorities when Huygens lands. "In the long term
Titan might mean a lot to humanity, as in the
very distant future when our Sun becomes a red
giant, it will become hotter and could even be a
place for us."
Sounds
Sound
of waterfall on earth
Sound
of waterfall on
Titan
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| Expert's waterfall on Saturn
moon | Login/Create
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Re: Expert's
waterfall on Saturn moon (Score: 1)
by aatash
(Aatash_@hotmail.com) on
Jul 09, 2004 - 11:23 AM
(User
info | Send
a message) |
| interesting...
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