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- The Surface of Titan -- Hydrocarbon Dunes
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zogger Mon, 05 May 2008 20:35:09 PDT Astronomy
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Unlike the sand of Earth, which comes from rock decomposition and erosion, researchers think that the "sand" On Saturn's moon Titan falls from the atmosphere as tiny hydrocarbon particles, where it fuses together at the surface into small pieces just large enough to form good sand for dune making.
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.." The new findings may help explain how, once on the ground, hydrocarbon particulates the size of smoke particles might grow into sand grains through a process called "sintering" - a slight melting that welds particles together. It may be that sintering produces particles that are just the right size for sand grains - between 0.18-0.25 millimeters and no larger, perfect for blowing in the wind and drifting into dunes."
ed.z.: It rains fuel there..interesting
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- Yo Michael!
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zogger Tue, 06 May 2008 09:06:13 PDT
- I borked your reply here. I don't know what happened but it also showed up as an article submission, when I deleted that, it deleted your reply as well! Sorry about that.
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- Titan
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Michael Smith Tue, 06 May 2008 15:46:53 PDT
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Oh thats OK. I was just repeating Arthur Clarkes point about Titan being the reverse of Earth in some ways. I imagined that you might be able to find some sort of fossil oxidiser like liquid nitrous oxide or some such deep underground. Then you could pretty much operate normal internal combustion engines out on the surface. 90 degrees K is not that cold after all.
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