Show Date: December 26, 2004

DEEP WAVES AND WANDERING ROBOTS
Pam Eastlick for the Marianas Variety

Greetings and welcome to The Deep column and the deepest radio show on Earth. The Deep is the science talk radio program that takes you from the depths of the ocean to the farthest reaches of the universe. This week on The Deep hosted by Jim Sullivan and aired at 6:00 each Wednesday evening on K-57, we’ll discuss the consequences of the Sumatran earthquake and talk about the Huygens probe to Titan.

On Sunday, our planet was rocked by the biggest earthquake in years. The 8.9 earthquake struck 25 miles below the north coast of Indonesia and was the fifth largest quake since 1900. It was so huge the Earth’s rotation rate was very slightly affected. But the real destruction was caused by the massive tsunamis (tidal waves) generated by the earthquake.

The tsunamis killed thousands of people including several in the African nation of Somalia, which is 3,000 miles away from the earthquake’s epicenter. Many people died in Sri Lanka and in southern India and in many other parts of coastal southern Asia. What makes tsunamis so dangerous?
When a powerful earthquake occurs on the ocean floor, it creates colossal waves that are as tall as the ocean depth at that point. This waves ripple out from the earthquake just like the ripples caused when you throw a rock into a pool. These waves aren’t dangerous in the open ocean; ships at sea may not even notice them. The problem occurs when the tsunami approaches land. The bottom of the huge standing wave is pushed up by rising ground and the wave gets higher and higher above the water’s surface. If the sea bottom rises gradually, the wave becomes a wall of water that may crash miles inland and destroys everything in its path.

Here on Guam, we’re surrounded by Mother Ocean. How susceptible are we to the devastating effects of tsunamis, the deepest waves on Earth? Join us this week on The Deep to talk about this important topic.

ROBOT AWAY
Back in October, the controllers of the Cassini spaceship in orbit around the planet Saturn, set the billion-dollar vessel on a direct collision course with Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Titan is about the size of the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere. It’s so substantial; in fact, that we can’t see through it and we had no idea what the surface of Titan was like.

Saturn is a long way from the Sun, and it’s extremely cold out there, so far away from the furnace. An average balmy day on Titan is around –280 degrees, just a little colder than the average temperature in your freezer (OK, a LOT colder!). Titan’s atmosphere is mostly nitrogen gas, just like Earth’s and data sent back by the Voyager spaceships in the 1970’s told us that Titan’s surface seemed to be covered with organic chemicals, the same sort of chemicals that are found in life here on Earth.

The Cassini spaceship went into orbit around Saturn in July and has been sending back awesome data ever since. We’ve taken pictures of Titan’s surface with radar and by now, we should know what’s under those clouds. However, the pictures returned were so alien that they made little sense.

So, have scientist given up in frustration and decided to crash Cassini into Titan? No, the reason Cassini was put on a direct collision course was to release a separate probe called Huygens (named for the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens and pronounced ‘Hi gens’, ‘How gens’ or ‘Hoy gens’ depending on your source). This robot will crash into Titan’s surface but it will release a giant parachute when it enters the atmosphere and fall very slowly to the ground or the ice or the ocean or whatever’s down there.
But if there are seas, they aren’t made of water. Titan is so cold that water is just another rock on the surface. Titan’s water ice is only a distant relative of the stuff in the cooler. It’s cold enough there for liquid seas of ethane or propane.

What will Huygens see? We’ll have to wait until 14 January when Huygens enters Titan’s atmosphere. It will touch whatever surface it hits, 2 ½ hours later at 30 mph, if all goes well. And, in the meantime, Cassini, the mother ship will undergo several course corrections to keep her from following her robot offspring into Titan’s cloud tops. Cassini has a lot more exploration to do!

Join Jim Sullivan on The Deep every Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m. on K-57 for a fascinating look at science from the depths of the ocean to the farthest reaches of space. This week we’ll explore deep waves and wandering robots. Don’t miss it!