Our Distant Neighbor, Titan

Aboard Titan — A NASA artist’s impression of the Huygens probe settling down upon the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

There’s been some remarkable recent news concerning the planet Saturn’s very large moon, Titus:

“Surprise 4,000-mile ‘ice corridor’ found on Saturn’s moon Titan: Planetary scientists used a new analysis tool to spot a band of water ice stretching almost halfway around the circumference of the chilly world.”

“Welcome To Titan, Saturn’s ‘Deranged’ Earth-Like Moon Beginning To Show Signs Of Life: ‘Every time we make discoveries on Titan, it becomes more and more mysterious.'”

“Saturn’s moon Titan has a massive strip of water ice, and scientists don’t know why”

And, on a related note, this is more important than you might think:

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/ancient-rivers-show-lack-of-plate-tectonics-on-mars-and-titan

Despite the earthquakes and other negatives associated with plate tectonics, the movement of Earth’s plates also contributes indispensably to the habitability of the planet. (I’ll enlarge on that point, someday, in a much more substantial publication. It’s scarcely original with me, but it will probably be new to many.)

***

Severe climate change:

“Winter is coming to destroy Pluto’s atmosphere by 2030, study says”

***

In my capacity as a highly-paid apologist (whose massive apologetic checks have been lost in the mail for a staggering three-and-a-half decades), I regularly encounter two distinct but related atheist claims about religion and science:

1. Religious faith is incompatible with scientific reason, both as method and in terms of the substantial results.

2. Religion has long been an enemy and an obstacle to science.

Both claims are, at point after point, demonstrably false.

Here, though, is a piece by two Jesuit scientists — one of them Dr. Guy Consolmagno, the Vatican astronomer — arguing against Claim #2:

http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/12/12/the-catholic-church-supports-science-plus-9-more-things-you-should-know/35427

This is an interesting and well-done little BBC video, roughly six minutes long, about the Vatican Observatory in Arizona:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31051635

I must say that the priest/astronomers in it come across a whole lot better than does Lawrence Krauss.

And here is an interesting article about astronomical activity sponsored by the Vatican:

Vatican stargazers look for divine inspiration

On the same subject:

“The Pope’s Planetologists”

Finally, in this context, I remind you that the Interpreter Foundation hosted that official Vatican Astronomer, the Jesuit brother Dr. Guy Consolmagno, at its 2016 Science & Mormonism Symposium. He gave an excellent keynote address. If you haven’t yet watched it, and if such things interest you at all, you should watch it:

“Astronomy, God, and the Search for Elegance”

Posted from Jerusalem, Israel

Our distant neighbor, Titan