Saturn's moon Titan glows at night

Well, this is really weird.

It seems that the Cassini probe has photographed a noticeable glow emanating from Titan at night.

This article is about thunderstorms on Saturn, but, near the end, it mentions the glow and gives a quick summary of observations:
www.space.com...

The glow is explained as a natural reaction involving Titan's atmospheric gases... but I'm sure conspiracists might be inclined to see this as evidence of ET activity on the giant moon (cities, power output, etc.). To be honest, there's a part of me that wonders if the natural gas explanation was just the first thing NASA thought of... a theory that wasn't allowed to have competition, that is. After all... if this was just an atmospheric effect, would it always be concentrated in one exact area?

On the other hand, creatures that had evolved on Titan would probably not use 'lighting' because they would be adapted, from birth, to dark conditions. There would be no reason for them to light city streets because they would be biologically suited for the dark (aliens that had recently colonized the place, however...).

I am not claiming that this glow is proof of ETs on Titan. I imagine that the explanation offered is the correct one... and so I am really not trying to present a ET/UFO thread here. I just thought the ATS world might be surprised and fascinated by this discovery.

The whole planet glows... not just one tiny section, and it's fairly evenly distributed. This implies a natural cause.

...or that titans inhabitants like to sleep very spread out over the planets surface, and all use nightlights as they are afraid of the dark.

Originally posted by Byrd
The whole planet glows... not just one tiny section, and it's fairly evenly distributed. This implies a natural cause.

Yep, you're right. I misread that article (in my defense, I was on lunch break and rushing through stuff at the time).

Still... It's pretty cool. A glowing moon? I've never even run across anything like that in science fiction.

Hmmn...

Cassini will be making its first close pass tonight. I wonder if this will shed some more light on the glow?

[edit on 26-10-2004 by onlyinmydreams]