Word: titanic
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...Titan is a kind of time machine," says Sagan, "enabling us to look backward to the time of the early earth. I don't think life there is out of the question...
That possibility was suggested in a recent study of Titan, the largest of Saturn's ten moons, by a team of Cornell University scientists under Astronomer-Exobiologist Carl Sagan. From infra-red and other telescopic measurements of the satellite, a body as large as the planet Mercury, Sagan and his colleagues conclude that Titan is relatively much warmer (about-100° F.) than previously estimated. It also has a thicker atmosphere than had been suspected and is leaking small quantities of hydrogen gas into space. Pondering these surprising conditions on Titan, the Cornell group has evolved a picture...
Time Machine. To account for the higher-than-expected temperatures on a body that is about ten times farther from the sun than the earth is, Sagan explains that Titan's atmosphere must be producing a significant "greenhouse effect"-that is, trapping more heat under its clouds than it radiates back into space. He speculates that those clouds may consist of rust-red organic compounds floating in a thick atmosphere of hydrogen, methane and ammonia coughed up by volcanic eruptions. Exposed to the sun's radiation, the gases could form into complex organic compounds, including sugars, purines...
Frail Humanity. The most familiar recent histories and F.D.R. biographies, like James MacGregor Burns', concentrate on the successive crises of the Depression and World War II: Roosevelt, the embattled titan, fighting for the presidency, then for economic reform, finally for democracy's very survival. Davis ends this volume in the fall of 1928, with Roosevelt about to be nominated for Governor of New York. He assesses Roosevelt not as a hero but as a man full of frail humanity...
...Statendam would steam from New York to Florida for the Apollo 17 launching, then sail through the Caribbean while a band of intellectuals discussed what it all meant. Some never showed up: specifically Arthur C. Clarke, co-author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Rocket Titan Wernher von Braun. But Novelist Katherine Anne Porter (Ship of Fools) was on hand to describe the launching as "rather glorious." So was Norman Mailer, who argued that the space shots should have included experiments in magic and telepathy. The problem: only about 40 people bought the premium tickets; the remainder were various "guests...