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Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23008-nilelike-river-roves-across-saturns-moon-titan.html
Nile-like river roves across Saturn's moon Titan
Coursing 400 kilometres towards a dark delta, a river found on Saturn's moon Titan is the longest yet seen outside Earth. Bearing a striking resemblance to the Nile, the river hints at ongoing geological activity on the moon.
Titan is considered to be the most Earth-like extraterrestrial body in the solar system. In addition to its thick atmosphere, the moon boasts mountains, lakes and a liquid cycle akin to Earth's water cycle.
But at -179 °C, Titan is too cold for flowing water. Instead, liquid hydrocarbons such as ethane and methane fill its lakes and streams.
Finding faults
Spotted by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, the newfound river follows a relatively straight path into one of Titan's large seas, Ligeia Mare. "We think it's raining in the highlands and flowing down into these river valleys," says Thomas Farr of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The Nile's relatively straight shape is partly controlled by fault lines, which on Earth mark the places where tectonic plates meet. Titan is probably too small to have plates, but the river may also be tracing a fault in the bedrock, says Farr. Pressure could build up on such faults, causing them to shift and form new chasms and lakes, he says.
"Usually when we look at another planet, we're cautioned not to bring our Earth experience too much to bear, because we might fool ourselves," says Farr. "But here we look at a completely alien world and it looks just like the Earth. It's hard to believe."
Titan: a river runs through it (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI)
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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