I have an appreciation for science. I really do. But sometimes some scientific bits just sail right over my head. This is to be expected, because I was educated in Alabama public schools. I’ll contextualize that for you like this: you remember that old joke about how if we’re going to include “alternate theories” alongside teaching evolution, we should also include “alternate theories” alongside teaching gravity? Yeah…in Alabama that’s not a joke.
I lived there for twenty-five years, folks. I have a license to make Alabama jokes.
Anyway, my point here is that the headline for this article, “Cassini instrument confirms liquid surface lake on Titan,” is about as far as I can manage. I know that Cassini is the orbiter we’ve got up there, I know that Titan is a moon of Saturn. But I get a bit lost when they start talking about ethane and methane and the Thane of Cawdor and who knows what else. I do know that the lake in question is about 150 miles long and appears to be evaporating. And they do say that “Detection of liquid ethane in Ontario Lacus confirms a long-held idea that lakes and seas filled with methane and ethane exist on Titan.”
Of course, if it’s liquid and evaporating it could have been a result of Brion Gysin’s sloppy giant, right?
P.S. Didn’t we already have confirmation of this from early last year? Or was that the initial report and this the confirmation?
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