The Huygens probe, which will parachute onto Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, early next year, is likely to splash down in an ocean of hydrocarbon oil.
Until recently, astronomers had been unable to peer through Titan’s thick atmosphere of nitrogen and methane. But they always suspected that there must be source of methane, perhaps in liquid form, at the surface. Without such a hydrocarbon source, the methane in Titan’s atmosphere would have vanished long ago, as it is steadily destroyed by ultraviolet light from the sun.
An 8.2-metre telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile has now managed to pierce…
