Saturn Moon's Atmosphere May Hold Ingredients for Life. Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the Space.com Newsletter Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more! You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter The dense atmosphere roiling on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may come from organic material baking in the moon's interior. Titan fascinates scientists because of its thick atmosphere — which is mostly made of nitrogen gas — and its liquid methane and ethane oceans. The complex molecules on Titan, including organic material — that is, substances that incorporate carbon — make it a promising location for life to develop. Article continues below "Because Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere, scientists have wondered for a long time what its source was," Miller said.
The Grey agenda 1 of 4. James Gilliland ECETI Update November 4 2010.
[1006.4962] Methane, ammonia, and their irradiation products at the surface of an intermediate-size KBO? A portrait of Plutino (90482) Orcus. Venus' Atmosphere Proves a Real Drag, Leading to a Discovery. The Interplanetary Magnetic Field. The Interplanetary Magnetic Field It comes from the Sun! Back to spaceweather.com The Sun is a big magnet . During solar minimum the Sun's magnetic field, like Earth's, resembles that of an iron bar magnet, with great closed loops near the equator and open field lines near the poles.
Scientists call such a field a " dipole . " The Sun's dipolar field is about as strong as a refrigerator magnet, or 50 gauss. During the years around solar maximum (2000 and 2001 are good examples) spots pepper the face of the Sun. The Sun's magnetic field isn't confined to the immediate vicinity of our star. Above : Steve Suess (NASA/MSFC) prepared this figure, which shows the Sun's spiraling magnetic field from a vantage point ~100 AU from the Sun. Earth has a magnetic field, too. Above : Earth's magnetosphere . "When B z is south, that is, opposite Earth's magnetic field, the two fields link up," explains Christopher Russell, a Professor of Geophysics and Space Physics at UCLA. Back to spaceweather.com. The Planetary K index.
Relationship between Kp and the Aurora [ref] Right: From thousands of observations, Cornell University scientists have determined geographic subpoints for the southern edges of auroral displays. The curves represent four values of the planetary index (Kp). As this index increases, the aurora's southern edge moves southward. In this article we briefly explain some of the ideas behind the association of the aurora with geomagnetic activity and a bit about how the ‘K-index’ or ‘K-factor’ works. The aurora is understood to be caused by the interaction of high energy particles (usually electrons) with neutral atoms in the earth's upper atmosphere. These high energy particles can ‘excite’ (by collisions) valence electrons that are bound to the neutral atom.
The ‘excited’ electron can then ‘de-excite’ and return back to its initial, lower energy state, but in the process it releases a photon (a light particle). For further reading we can recommend a couple of books for you. Caesium. Caesium or cesium[note 1] is a chemical element with symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is a soft, silvery-gold alkali metal with a melting point of 28 °C (82 °F), which makes it one of only five elemental metals that are liquid at or near room temperature. [note 2] Caesium is an alkali metal and has physical and chemical properties similar to those of rubidium and potassium.
The metal is extremely reactive and pyrophoric, reacting with water even at −116 °C (−177 °F). It is the least electronegative element with a stable isotope, caesium-133. Caesium is mined mostly from pollucite, while the radioisotopes, especially caesium-137, a fission product, are extracted from waste produced by nuclear reactors. Two German chemists, Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff, discovered caesium in 1860 by the newly developed method of flame spectroscopy. The first small-scale applications for caesium were as a "getter" in vacuum tubes and in photoelectric cells. Characteristics[edit] Compounds[edit]