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25.01.05

Web blog entry number ten.

Huygens landed and worked! Whao, I feel proud being a European. I never thought those Italian engineers would pull it off, but they did!
The pictures were quite grainy but after further analysis and treatment, one can clearly see something fantastic: it looks more or less like some obscure parts of earth!

The same mechanisms are in place: rain, erosion, rivers, lakes etc. But the chemistry is different: instead of water, Titan has methane lakes and rivers. Rain is dripping down, but the drops go 8 times slower than here...it would be something to experience to stand there on the surface and watch the sky :) the daylight is only 4 percent compared to earth, but that is not so bad. Its many times brighter than the full moon ligth for instance.

Now the scientists are working hard to find out if the Methane found is generated by biological processes or geological (since methane is broken down by sunlight and must be continously refurbished).They look at the relationship of two forms (or isotopes) of the element carbon - C12 and C13.

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Living cells preferentially incorporate C12. So compounds produced by living things should be depleted of "heavier" isotopes such as C13; they are said to have a high C12/C13 ratio. Clues can be found by the amounts of C12/C13 carbon isotopes: life forms should make C13 more rare than C12.

Well, lets see, chances are very slim. If life exist, it will be deep down, several kilometers under the surface, where computer models indicate that oceans of water exist.

6.01.05

Web blog entry number nine.

Mark friday the 14th of January in your calendar!
A grand space mission, one of the biggest and most expensive ever, will come to its grande finale. At about 12 o clock noon finnish time the Huygens probe will enter the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan.

Titan has fascinated astronomers for a long time because of its very dense atmosphere and because of its strange radar signature. Radar signals that bounced back to earth have made scientists suspect that Titan harbours oceans of some kind of liquid. Further close up photographs made by Cassini have not been able to fully answer the mystery, rather only add to it.

Titan is indeed a very odd bird amongst moons. And what is even more fascinating is that close to the south pole,

big clouds of methane have been seen. Why is this fascinating? Well, methane is an unstable gas that quickly breaks down when exposed to sun light. And the only known process on earth that produces methane is...life.

So could there still be life on this very frozen and cold and faraway strange little moon?
Most likely not. But who knows...

If you want to know more you can check out the Cassini or Huygens pages.

3.01.05

Web blog entry number eight.

A new year again, despite Tsunamis and earthquakes. The Earth rotates a bit faster (3 parts in a million of a second) and the atmosphere is continuing to get warmer. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees for longer or warmer summers, but happy new year to you all anyhow!

We spent christmas together with my father and the kids. Despite the little space in our apartement we had a nice time together. As we say in swedish: "if you find space in your heart, you can find space for your arse as well".

New years weekend was more or less destroyed by influensa.

Rocket scientist in action. [ Link no longer active ].....

Both Amanda and me ended up being sick at the same time and as usual I got a sinus infection that left me drained of energy. We spent some hours with Tanja and Rod shooting rockets and eating nice food, and despite our condition it was really nice!
The finnish people are really crazy with rockets. If it reads "security distance 25 meters" it translates in finnish to "don't hold it with both your hands".
Finns love rockets. I don't fully understand why but thats the way it is. Maybe it has something to do with the war? Well, if you pack 20+ Finns in the same place to launch rockets, its at least an impressive amount of firepower.