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January 19, 2005
Life Arrives on Titan
William Saletan's brilliant, awe-struck article about the Huygens landing expresses my sentiments exactly about this astonishing journey. In his words:
"Scientists wonder whether Titan is 'prebiotic'—whether it might have evolved like Earth, had Saturn not been exiled to the far reaches of the solar system. They scour the pictures for signs of life.
But there's already a sign of life on Titan. It's the one thing the camera can't show you: itself. Atop the orange landscape stands the corpse of Huygens, eye and emissary of a species that got off the ground of its own planet only 100 years ago and developed personal computers only 30 years ago. Today that species is poring over spectral, chemical, and electrical data from a world a billion miles away."
Why we only hear about this kind of thing in five-minute blurbs at the tail end of newscasts full of ridiculous trivia at best and voyeuristic sludge at worst is something I will never understand.
Posted by Ben at January 19, 2005 02:29 AM
Comments
Thanks for sharing that article, Ben.
Human beings are amazing!
Posted by: Augusto at January 21, 2005 06:48 PM