

Cassini Watches Mysterious Feature Evolve in Titan Sea - mdturnerphys
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/cassini/cassini-watches-mysterious-feature-evolve-in-titan-sea/

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mturmon
One of the insights of remote sensing has been that, if you look for changes,
you will tend to find them. And generally you are surprised by the things you
discover.

The linked article is one, and various Martian phenomena are another -
@varelse linked the landslides, but there are also dust devils, winds, and ice
caps. The geysers on Enceladus are another example.

Nighttime astronomy has also had these surprises -- supernovae (leading to the
discovery of dark energy), gamma ray bursts, blazars. All because we had the
computational and data-gathering machinery to compare observations from
surveys.

In retrospect, it perhaps wasn't surprising, but I think discipline scientists
have indeed been surprised by the variety of phenomena observed.

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varelse
Here we go again...

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6979855/Nasa-
photog...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6979855/Nasa-photographs-
trees-on-Mars.html) [http://www.space.com/11057-science-claims-alien-
life.html](http://www.space.com/11057-science-claims-alien-life.html)

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not_that_noob
There is a finite and nonzero probability that this could be signs of alien
life. Cynicism is right ~99.99% of the time, but it is 0.01% that gets humans
to build rocketships and reach for the stars.

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dalke
While romantic imagery, it's cynics who propose that we 'reach for the stars'
because there's no future on Earth, due to population explosion or nuclear war
or environmental collapse or other doom.

We've also built an awful lot of rockets for war, to bring the power of the
stars down on our enemies as H-bombs. The Gemini series launched on top of a
repurposed ICBM. I don't know if developing nuclear bomb delivery vehicles
falls under cynicism, but it's not part of reaching for the stars.

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twic
So this is that Didymo stuff then? Man, gets everywhere.

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egometry
Luckily, this isn't Europa, so we may attempt landings there.

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kjs3
Unfortunately, it's Cthulhu rising from the lake, so we're still screwed...

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joshkpeterson
In b4 Solaris

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f2f
you made my day!

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nether
Perhaps it is sentient?

