Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is an intriguing place. With its surface temperature averaging -180°C, more than a hundred degrees colder than an Antarctic winter, any visitor would expect to find a solid frozen wasteland. Yet when the Cassini spacecraft first arrived in 2004 and began peering through its thick cloud layers with radar, scientists found something completely unexpected. Titan has a climate very much like Earth’s, with rain, rivers, and even oceans with waves crashing on pebbly beaches. The crucial … Continue reading →

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered what appear to be enormous seasonal jets of water vapour venting from Europa – one of the four large moons of Jupiter that are visible from Earth through simple binoculars. If these observations can be confirmed, then Europa will be only the third world known to have water geysers, after Earth, and Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The jet of water vapour appears to shoot up to a height of over two hundred kilometers … Continue reading →

Scientists reviewing over thirty years worth of data from a series of Earth observing satellites have found the coldest region on the planet. A thousand kilometer long ridge on the East Antarctica Plain has temperatures plummeting down to a blistering -93.2° Celsius, over 30° colder than the lowest temperature recorded in the coldest permanently inhabited town, in Siberia. The ridge lies between two peaks, Dome Argus and Dome Fuji, at an altitude of almost fourteen thousand feet – almost half … Continue reading →