How startling and pleasing it is to be out for a midnight stroll this week and see it so high. Saturn will keep improving until the December 17 opposition of 2002, when, for most Canadian observers, it will climb more than two thirds of the way to the top of the sky. Our view of Saturn and it moons is steadily improving for other reasons. The development of more sensitive detectors, especially in the near-infrared part of the spectrum, means that astronomers are getting more bang for their observing time with some of the worlds largest telescopes. As a case in point, last week planetary astronomer Caitlin Griffith, of Northern Arizona University, announced a surprising discovery on Titan.
Titan is a mysterious place.
As the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere, it spends its time hidden behind a featureless photochemical haze. In the near infrared, however, the situation has proved to be less bleak. The team was looking at wavelengths of infrared light that are particularly good at escaping through Titan's haze. Similar observations had already revealed nothing exceptional, so there was no particular urgency in looking at these results. When the data were finally analyzed this year, however, the astronomers got a big surprise.