Behind the Headlines – World Book Student
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Oct. 24-30, 2013, Current Events Lesson Plan

Current Event:

Thanks to a change of seasons on Titan, Saturn’s largest natural satellite, scientists with NASA’s Cassini mission are getting a much clearer view of the lakes and seas in that moon’s unusual northern regions. Since Cassini’s arrival at Saturn in 2004, thick winter clouds and haze have shrouded Titan’s northern regions. During Titan’s northern winter, Cassini scientists relied on radar, which can penetrate thick clouds and haze, to study the surface. Now, with the appearance of northern summer, the clouds and haze are disappearing and Cassini has been able to capture new details about Titan’s bodies of liquid and surrounding terrain. Titan is the only other body in the solar system, beside Earth, known to have stable liquid on its surface. On Earth, the most abundant surface liquid is water. But because Titan’s atmosphere is extremely cold, any liquid water or water vapor there would quickly freeze. Instead, Titan’s rivers and lakes are filled with such hydrocarbons as ethane and methane.

New infrared images (in false color) from the Cassini space probe have revealed new details about the lakes and surrounding terrain in Titan's northern regions. The orange areas may represent areas from which liquid evaporated. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

 

Objective:

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest satellite in the solar system. Only Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is bigger. The Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens discovered Titan in 1655. Because Titan lies far from the sun, its surface is extremely cold, around –290 °F (–179 °C). Titan’s surface features a complex geography that appears to include dark dunes of organic sand, mountains covered by clouds of methane, volcanoes of water and ammonia ice, and systems of methane and ethane lakes and seas. Unlike any other moon in the solar system, Titan has a dense atmosphere. Observations by scientists over several years have revealed that these lakes and seas change size. In the late 1900′s, three United States space probes flew by Titan: Pioneer 11 in 1979, Voyager 1 in 1980, and Voyager 2 in 1981. None of these spacecraft could see through the haze to Titan’s surface. In 2004, the U.S. Cassini spacecraft began using radar data and special imaging techniques to study Titan’s surface. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore Titan, Saturn, and other astronomical topics.

 

Words to know:

  • Astronomy
  • Cassini
  • Christiaan Huygens
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
  • Planet
  • Satellite
  • Saturn (planet)
  • Solar system
  • Titan
  • Voyager

 

Discussion Topics:

1. Ask your students if they can name the seven other planets, besides Saturn, in the solar system. (The other planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.)

2. Ask your students what they know about Saturn. (Students might say that it is the second-largest planet in the solar system [Jupiter is the largest]; it is known for its rings; it has at least 62 satellites, the largest being Titan; it was the farthest planet from Earth known to ancient observers.)

3. Ask your students to debate, “People will one day be able to live on other planets.”

4. Ask your students, “If alien life exists, what would be some the benefits and detriments of coming into contact with a technologically superior alien race?”

5. Ask your students to use World Book’s Timelines feature to create a timeline of discoveries about Saturn. (Students may wish to use the “History of study” section of World Book’s Saturn article for help.)


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