Word: solarized
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While Europa may be the solar system's most promising Petri dish, it is by no means the only one. Saturn's Titan, larger than both Mercury and Pluto, has an atmosphere fully 60% denser than Earth's, forming a sort of photochemical haze that appears to be full of the stuff of prebiology. The problem is that Titan is cold. With temperatures hovering near -290[degrees]F and no signs yet of significant heat to drive chemical reactions, the moon could be awash in organics that are nevertheless unable to combine in biologically useful ways...
...life." Others aren't so sure; if there's lightning in the Titanian atmosphere, it could energize organic molecules in a hurry. "I would be surprised if there is life on Titan," says astronomer Toby Owen of the University of Hawaii, "but we've been surprised by the solar system before...
...dehydrated, planetologists don't rule out the possibility of subsurface water, particularly since they think that ordinary steam might provide some of the propulsive muscle behind the moon's volcanoes. Triton presents a greater organic hurdle. At -391[degrees]F, the moon is the coldest known object in the solar system. Nevertheless, it appears heavy with subsurface ice, which seems to have got warm enough, in the past at least, to flow over the landscape in a lava-like slurry. More tantalizing, dark streaks near the poles suggest that occasional geysering on the frozen moon may have spouted carbon...
Even before Cassini's work begins and Galileo's ends, other ships could be on the way to join them in the outer solar system. NASA is tentatively planning several new Europa probes, including one that will photograph its surface and take radar soundings beneath its crust. If the radar picks up the telltale echoes of liquid water, another spacecraft would be sent to land on Europa and release a heated probe designed to melt through the ice layer and look for signs of life in the seas below...
...SOLAR SYSTEM: NASA scientists are warning satellite operators and power companies to prepare for a large-scale geomagnetic storm that may be capable of disrupting telecommunications and power grids. A major solar eruption on Monday sent more than a million tons of ionized particles hurtling outward; the solar wind should wash over the Earth Wednesday night and Thursday. The eruption was first recorded two days ago by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a two year old satellite stationed in solar orbit. Astronomers credit a similar storm with knocking out a $200 million AT&T communications satellite in January. Though solar...