Data from NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn initially suggested that Titan could possess a vast subterranean ocean of liquid water. However, when University of Washington scientist Baptiste Journeau and his team created models of a moon with an ocean, the findings did not align with the physical characteristics indicated by the data. What we likely observe instead resembles Arctic sea ice and aquifers, rather than an expansive ocean akin to those on Earth.
This composite image presents an infrared view of Titan. In this depiction, blue signifies wavelengths centered at 1.3 microns, green at 2.0 microns, and red at 5.0 microns. While visible wavelengths only reveal Titan’s hazy atmosphere, the near-infrared wavelengths enable Cassini’s vision to penetrate the haze, showcasing the moon’s surface. This perspective primarily focuses on the terrain in Titan’s hemisphere facing Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.
The Cassini mission, which commenced in 1997 and spanned nearly 20 years, yielded extensive data about Saturn and its 274 moons.
Titan is the only celestial body outside Earth known to feature liquid on its surface.
Temperatures on Titan hover around -183 degrees Celsius (-297 degrees Fahrenheit). Rather than water, liquid methane forms lakes and precipitates as rain.
As Titan orbits Saturn in an elliptical pattern, scientists noted the moon stretching or contracting based on its position relative to Saturn.
In 2008, they hypothesized that Titan must harbor a massive ocean beneath its crust to explain such notable deformation.
“The extent of deformation is influenced by Titan’s internal structure,” Journeau explains.
“When Saturn’s gravity acts on a deep ocean, it can bend the crust even more; however, if Titan is entirely frozen, the deformation would be less pronounced.”
“The deformations detected during the initial analysis of Cassini mission data might align with a global ocean scenario, but we now understand that there is more complexity involved.”
Schematic representation of Titan’s internal structure as revealed by Petricca et al.. Image credit: Petricca et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-025-09818-x.
In this new study, Dr. Journeau and his co-authors introduce an additional layer of detail: timing.
Titan’s shape alteration lags Saturn’s peak gravitational influence by approximately 15 hours.
Similar to stirring honey with a spoon, manipulating a thick and viscous substance demands more energy compared to liquid water.
By measuring this delay, scientists were able to ascertain how much energy was required to alter Titan’s shape, facilitating inferences about its internal viscosity.
The energy loss, or dissipation, observed on Titan greatly exceeded what researchers anticipated in a global ocean framework.
“No one expected such significant energy dissipation to take place within Titan,” stated Dr. Flavio Petricca, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“This provided definitive evidence that Titan’s interior differs from our previous analyses.”
Consequently, the scientists proposed a model characterized by a greater presence of slush and significantly reduced quantities of liquid water.
This slush is sufficiently thick to explain the delay, yet still contains water, enabling Titan to deform under gravitational forces.
“Titan’s water layer is so dense and the pressure so great that it alters the physics of the water,” Journeau remarks.
“Water and ice behave differently compared to seawater on Earth.”
This study is published in today’s issue of Nature.
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F. Petricca et al. 2025. The dissipation of Titan’s powerful tidal forces prevents the formation of underground oceans. Nature 648, 556-561; doi: 10.1038/s41586-025-09818-x
Titan serves as an intriguing subject for in-depth investigations of organic chemistry under unusual conditions. This Saturnian moon is abundant in nonpolar hydrocarbons like ethane and methane, alongside hydrogen cyanide (HCN), a highly relevant small polar molecule in prebiotic chemistry. Recent studies show that these notably polar compounds can mix at low temperatures, creating structures that challenge traditional chemical theories.
Artistic rendering of Kraken Mare, Titan’s extensive ocean of liquid methane. Image credit: NASA’s John Glenn Research Center.
Hydrogen cyanide is commonly found in the astrochemical landscape and has been detected in numerous celestial bodies, including the interstellar medium, comets, planets, moons, and dwarf planets.
This molecule ranks as the second most prevalent product anticipated from Titan’s atmospheric chemistry.
Dr. Martin Rahm, a researcher from Chalmers University of Technology, stated: “These remarkable discoveries enhance our understanding of something vast—a moon comparable in size to Mercury.”
In laboratory experiments, Rahm and his team combined hydrogen cyanide with methane and ethane at temperatures as low as 90 K (around -180 degrees Celsius).
At this temperature, hydrogen cyanide forms crystals, while methane and ethane exist as liquids.
Using laser spectroscopy to analyze these mixtures at an atomic level, researchers found that while the molecules remained intact, changes were still occurring.
To uncover what was happening, they conducted extensive computer simulations to explore thousands of potential molecular arrangements in the solid phase.
Ultimately, they discovered that the hydrocarbons infiltrated the hydrogen cyanide crystal lattice, leading to the formation of a stable new structure termed a cocrystal.
“The identification of unexpected interactions between these substances may influence our understanding of Titan’s geology and unique features such as lakes, oceans, and sand dunes,” Dr. Rahm explained.
“Moreover, hydrogen cyanide could be crucial in the abiotic synthesis of some life-building blocks, like amino acids for proteins and nucleobases for genetic material.”
“Consequently, our research offers valuable insights into the pre-emergent chemistry of life and the potential for life to evolve in extreme environments.”
of result Published in July 2025. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Fernando Izquierdo Ruiz and others. 2025. Hydrogen cyanide and hydrocarbons mix on Titan. PNAS 122 (30): e2507522122; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2507522122
Titan is the sole moon in our solar system with a significant atmosphere, captivating planetary scientists for years. Recent analysis of archival infrared data from the composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) onboard the NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission reveals that Titan’s hazy atmosphere does not rotate uniformly with its surface but instead exhibits a wobbly motion akin to that of a seasonally shifting gyroscope.
This view of Titan is among the final images received from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
“The dynamics of Titan’s atmospheric tilt are quite peculiar,” remarked Dr. Lucy Wright, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol.
“Titan’s atmosphere acts similarly to a gyroscope and seems to maintain stability in space.”
“We suspect that certain historical events may have displaced the atmosphere from its spin axis, resulting in its wobbling motion.”
“More intriguing is the observation that the degree of this tilt varies with Titan’s seasons.”
Dr. Wright and her team analyzed the symmetry within Titan’s atmospheric temperature field, confirming their hypothesis that it is centrally located at the poles.
However, this symmetry alters over time, corresponding with Titan’s extensive seasonal cycles that span nearly 30 years.
“What complicates matters is that this phenomenon is unaffected by the Sun or Saturn; it remains stationary in space, while the slope direction is fixed,” noted Professor Nick Teenby from the University of Bristol.
“This presents us with a riddle instead of a solution.”
This discovery will impact NASA’s upcoming Dragonfly Mission, a rotorcraft set to reach Titan in the 2030s.
Dragonflies will descend into the atmosphere, subject to the rapid winds of Titan, which are approximately 20 times faster than the surface rotation.
Understanding how the atmosphere wobbles seasonally is crucial for accurately determining the landing trajectory of the Dragonfly.
The tilt influences the payload’s aerial trajectory, making this study vital for engineers in predicting landing sites.
“The Goddard Space Flight Center noted: ‘NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center plays a significant role globally.”
“This instrument travels across the solar system, continuing to yield valuable scientific insights.”
“The behavior of Titan’s atmosphere as a rotating top detaches from the surface prompts fascinating inquiries that enhance our understanding of atmospheric physics, applicable to both Titan and Earth.”
Survey results were published this week in the Journal of Planetary Science.
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Lucy Wright et al. 2025. Seasonal evolution of the stratospheric slope and temperature field of Titan at high resolution from Cassini/CIRS. Planet. SCI. J 6, 114; doi: 10.3847/psj/adcab3
With data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the Keck II telescope, astronomers have found signs of cloud convection in Titan’s northern hemisphere. The majority of Titan’s lakes and oceans are situated in this region, replenished by sporadic rains of methane and ethane. Webb has also identified essential carbon-containing molecules that offer insight into Titan’s intricate atmospheric chemical processes.
These Titan images taken by Webb on July 11, 2023 show the Keck II telescope on July 14, 2023 (lower row), showing methane clouds (white arrows) appearing at various altitudes in Titan’s northern hemisphere. Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI/KECK Observatory.
Titan is a fascinating world enveloped in a yellowish smog haze. Its atmosphere, primarily composed of nitrogen, experiences weather patterns similar to those on Earth, such as clouds and rain.
In contrast to Earth, where weather is influenced by the evaporation and condensation of water, Titan’s chilly environment features a methane cycle.
Methane evaporates from the surface, rising into the atmosphere to condense into clouds.
Occasionally, icy particles fall to solid surfaces as a form of cold, oily rain.
“The Goddard Space Flight Center involves astronomers,” stated Dr. Connn Nixon, an astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Utilizing both Webb and Keck II telescopes, Dr. Nixon and his team observed Titan in November 2022 and July 2023.
These observations revealed cloud formations in the northern and high northern latitudes of Titan, coinciding with its current summer, and indicated that these clouds were gradually rising to higher altitudes.
Previous research identified cloud convection in southern latitudes, marking the first evidence of similar convection in the northern hemisphere.
This finding is crucial, as most of Titan’s lakes and oceans are located in the northern hemisphere, making evaporation from these bodies of water a primary source for methane.
On Earth, the troposphere, the lowest atmospheric layer, extends to about 12 km in altitude.
However, due to Titan’s low gravity, its troposphere stretches to approximately 45 km.
By utilizing various infrared filters, Webb and Keck explored different atmospheric depths on Titan, enabling astronomers to estimate cloud altitudes.
Researchers noted that clouds seemed to migrate to higher altitudes over a few days, although direct observation of precipitation remains elusive.
“Webb’s observation occurred at the end of Titan’s summer, a season we couldn’t monitor during the NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission,” remarked ESA researcher Dr. Thomas Cornet.
“Combined with ground-based observations, Webb is providing us with valuable new insights into Titan’s atmosphere. This ESA mission could explore the Saturn system in greater detail in the future.”
Titan is of significant astrobiological interest due to its intricate organic (carbon-containing) chemistry, despite its frigid temperatures of minus 180 degrees Celsius.
Organic molecules are the building blocks of life on Earth, and studying them in an environment like Titan may help scientists uncover the processes that contributed to the emergence of life on our planet.
Methane serves as a fundamental component driving much of Titan’s chemistry.
In Titan’s atmosphere, methane is broken down by sunlight or energetic electrons from Saturn’s magnetosphere, leading to the synthesis of ethane-like substances alongside more complex carbon-containing molecules.
The data from Webb provided a crucial missing piece for comprehending these chemical processes: the definitive detection of methyl radicals (CH)3, which form when methane breaks apart.
Identifying this compound signifies that scientists can now observe chemical reactions occurring on Titan for the first time, not just the initial ingredients or the end products.
“We are very enthusiastic about this world,” said Dr. Stephanie Millam, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
This hydrocarbon chemistry will have lasting implications for Titan’s future.
As methane decomposes in the upper atmosphere, some of it recombines to form other molecules, eventually reaching Titan’s surface in one chemical form or another, while some hydrogen escapes into space.
As a result, methane reserves will diminish over time unless there is a source to replenish them.
A similar phenomenon has occurred on Mars, where water molecules were broken down, and the resulting hydrogen was lost to space, culminating in the arid desert planet we observe today.
“In Titan, methane is continuously consumable,” Dr. Nixon explained.
“It could be constantly replenished from the crust and interior for billions of years.”
“If not, eventually it will all disappear, leaving Titan as a desolate landscape of dust and dunes.”
These findings were published in the journal Natural Astronomy.
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Kanixon et al. The atmosphere of Titan in late northern summer from JWST and Keck’s observations. Nature Astronomy Published online on May 14th, 2025. doi:10.1038/s41550-025-02537-3
The Earth’s coastline is an attractive place where liquids are mixed and materials are shaped into clear terrain, such as the River Delta. Similar active coastlines exist in Titan, the moon of Saturn, where liquid hydrocarbons (methane and ethane) replace water. However, studies of Titan’s coastline, particularly the River Delta, are challenging due to the limited imaging data and the unknown nature of its materials. To overcome these challenges, Brown University planetary scientists, MIT, the MIT-Whoi joint program of oceanography, Woods Hole Marine Facilities, Cornell University, have developed a new model that simulates the Earth’s coastline as if it were found in NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. They discovered that they could detect large terrain in Titan with the correct contrast. They then returned to Titan and remap the coastline. Surprisingly, they discovered that unlike on Earth, where many large rivers house the delta of rivers, many of the Titan rivers do not end in the delta. They also discovered submerged features of Titan on the seabed, suggesting changes in sea level and active currents below sea level.
This composite image shows an infrared view of Titan. In this image, blue represents the wavelength centered at 1.3 microns, green represents 2.0 microns, and red represents 5.0 microns. Views at visible wavelengths show only the hazy atmosphere of Titan. The near-infrared wavelength of this image allows Cassini’s vision to penetrate the haze and reveal the surface of the moon. The view focuses primarily on the terrain in the hemisphere facing Saturn in Titan. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
“We’ve seen a lot of effort into this world,” said Dr. Sam Burch, a researcher at Brown University.
“But the absence of delta raises many new questions.”
“We take it for granted that we get a delta if we have rivers and sediments.”
“But Titan is odd. It’s a playground for studying the processes we thought we understood.”
Titan is the largest of Saturn’s 274 confirmed moons. Its thick nitrogen and methane atmosphere creates many earth-like climate and weather features.
Titan has clouds, wind, rain, rivers, lakes and oceans. However, instead of water, Titan’s liquids contain methane and ethane. Methane is a liquid at Titan’s chilly surface temperatures.
Scientists learned about Titan’s liquid body when Cassini’s spaceship flew in 2006. Peering into the thick atmosphere of Titan with Cassini’s synthetic aperture radar (SAR), the spacecraft revealed a large body of liquid and a large flat area with a large flat area.
However, what is largely missing from Cassini’s SAR images was the delta, even at the mouth of the large river.
However, it was not clear whether Delta was really absent or not shown in Cassini’s SAR data.
That is a question Dr. Burch and his colleagues tried to answer in their new research.
The problem with Cassini’s SAR data is that shallow liquid methane is largely transparent in every image.
Therefore, while images of the SAR allowed us to see wide ocean and river channels, it is difficult to create coastal features with confidence, as it is difficult to see where the coast ends and where the seabed begins.
For this study, the authors developed a numerical model to simulate what Cassini’s SAR sees whether they are viewing a landscape that scientists understand well: Earth.
In the model, Earth’s rivers and ocean waters were replaced by Titan methane liquids with different radar absorption properties compared to water.
“We basically created a synthetic SAR image of the Earth that assumes the properties of Titan’s liquids instead of the Earth,” Dr. Burch said.
“If you see the SAR images of the landscape, we know so well that we can go back to Titan and get a little better at what we’re looking at.”
Researchers have found that synthetic SAR images of the Earth clearly solved large deltas and many other large coastal landscapes.
“If you have the size of a delta at the mouth of the Mississippi River, you should be able to see it,” Dr. Burch said.
“If we have a big barrier island or similar coastal landscape that we see along the US Gulf Coast, we should be able to see them.”
But as scientists shook the Titan images in light of new analysis, they were almost empty.
The rest of the moon’s river was completely delta free, except for two possible deltas near Titan’s Antarctic.
They found that only about 1.3% of the large rivers of Titan that end on the coastline have the delta. In contrast, on Earth, almost every river of similar size has a delta.
“It’s not entirely clear why Titans generally lack delta,” Dr. Burch said.
“The fluid properties of the Titan river should allow sediment to be carried and deposited.”
“Because the sea level in Titan is rising so rapidly, the delta can crush the landscape faster than it accumulates in a single location.”
“The winds and currents along the Titan coast can also play a similarly large role in preventing delta formation.”
And the only delta of mystery posed by new research is not missing.
A new analysis of Cassini SAR data on the Titan coast reveals holes of unknown origin deep within the lake and ocean.
Researchers also found deep waterways on the ocean floor, which appear to have been carved by the river flow, but it is not clear how they got there.
“All of these surprises require more research to fully understand,” Dr. Burch said.
“This is not really what we expected. But Titan does this well for us, and I think it’s an attractive place to study.”
study It was published in Journal of Journal Geophysics: Planets.
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SPD Birch et al. 2025. Detectability of coastal topography on Titan using Cassini radar. jgr planet 130 (3): e2024je008737; doi: 10.1029/2024je008737
A team of biologists from the US, Canada, UK, and France have developed a scenario for life on Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon.
Rendering of the artist on the surface of Titan, the biggest moon of Saturn. Image credits: Benjamin de Bivort, debivort.org/cc by-sa 3.0.
“Our research focuses on what makes Titan unique when compared to other ice moons and its rich organic content,” said Dr. Antonin Affelder, a researcher at the University of Arizona.
Using bioenergy modeling, Dr. Affholder and colleagues discovered that Titan’s underground ocean, estimated at around 483 km (300 miles), could support life forms that consume organic materials.
“There’s been a lot of speculation about scenarios that could create organisms on Titan based on lunar organic chemistry, but previous estimates suffer from an overly simplified approach,” Dr. Affholder said.
“Because Titan has such abundant organic matter, there was a sense that there was no shortage of food sources that could sustain life.”
“Not all of these organic molecules constitute a food source, and the ocean is really big; there is a limited exchange between the ocean and the surface, and all of those organic matter; so I argue for a more subtle approach.”
At the heart of the study is a fundamental approach that sought to come up with a plausible scenario for Titan’s life, which envisioned one of the simplest and most prominent fermentations of all biological metabolic processes.
Fermentation familiar to earthlings, used in breadmaking, beer brewing, and less desirable – sourdough fermentation, accustomed to its use in the spoilage of forgotten leftovers, requires only organic molecules but no oxidants like oxygen.
“Fermentation probably evolved early in the history of Earth’s life, and there’s no need to open the door to unknown or speculative mechanisms that may or may not have happened on Titan,” Dr. Affholder said.
“Life on Earth may have first appeared to eat organic molecules left behind from the formation of the Earth.”
“I asked if there could be similar microorganisms on Titan. If so, could Titan’s underground seas supply the biosphere from a seemingly vast inventory of abiotic organic molecules synthesized in Titan’s atmosphere, accumulate on its surface, and be present in its core?”
The researchers have focused specifically on glycine, the simplest organic molecule of all known amino acids.
“We know that glycine was relatively abundant in all kinds of primitive matter in the solar system,” Dr. Affholder said.
“When you look at clouds of particles and gases where stars and planets form, like asteroids, comets, our solar system, we find glycine or its precursors in almost every place.”
However, computer simulations reveal that only a small portion of Titan’s organic materials may be suitable for microbial consumption.
The microorganisms consumed by Titan’s ocean glycine rely on a stable supply of amino acids from the surface through thick, ice-like shells.
Previous work by the same team showed that meteors that shock Titan’s ice could leave behind a “melt pool” of liquid water.
“Our new research shows that this supply may be sufficient to maintain very few microorganisms, which are up to a few kilograms of physical fitness.”
“A small biosphere like this is an average of less than one cell per liter in Titan’s vast oceans.”
For your future mission to Titan, the possibility of finding life might be like searching for needles in a haystack if it’s actually there.
“We conclude that Titan’s unique, rich organic inventory may actually not be available to play a role in lunar habitat at an intuitive level of thinking,” Dr. Affholder said.
paper It was published in Journal of Planetary Science.
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Antonin abholder et al. 2025. Survival rate of glycine fermentation in the underground oceans of Titan. planet. SCI. j 6, 86; doi:10.3847/psj/adbc66
IIn 2004, Holly Longdale was a game designer at EverQuest and a champion of a new genre of video games that enabled massively multiplayer role-playing. These online fantasy worlds allow players to pursue quests together rather than alone, adding an engaging new social – and competitive – dimension to the static offline role-playing that Holly’s generation was accustomed to. I did. But whenever possible, Longdale would instead sneak in a few hours of play as EverQuest’s main competitor. That game was World of Warcraft (WoW).
“There were so many moments in WoW that I was jealous of,” she says. Then I saw another player running in the opposite direction. This is the druid who buffed me along the way. That’s when I knew I was going to be in this business for the long term. ” Twenty years later, Longdale is now vice president of WoW and executive producer at developer Blizzard, and one of the millions of people who have accepted the game as a part of their lives.
For two decades, World of Warcraft has been an icon of geek culture, referenced everywhere from South Park to The Big Bang Theory to Family Guy. WoW has become a convenient abbreviation for not only a certain type of gamer, but all sorts of nerds, nerds, and silly subcultures. In the ’00s, Ozzy Osbourne, Chuck Norris, Mr. T and more promoted it along with the infamous Night Elf Mohawk. Henry Cavill, Mila Kunis and Vin Diesel are among the fans, but the 2016 film did not do particularly well, grossing $439 million. In 2021, Blizzard revealed that players have combined for nearly 9 million years of play time.
There were certainly other role-playing games before WoW was released in 2004. However, 3D graphics was still in its infancy. Games like Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest have vast, largely barren worlds that rely on copious amounts of in-game text and clunky rules removed from tabletop games for explanation. did. Then along came Blizzard, the developer company that made a name for itself and a small fortune with great online competitive strategy games like StarCraft and Warcraft III. Unlike its competitors, WoW’s world of Azeroth felt alive, with gorgeous scenery and a huge number of animals and monsters roaming the landscape. An iconic bright yellow exclamation point will float above your non-player character’s head, letting them know that a quest awaits them. And of course, there are other players everywhere, taming beasts, slaying monsters for quests, drinking at inns, mining ore, or just passing by in high-level gear. He would see you doing things like that, and he would get jealous as you struggled to tackle the pack. A despicable Murloc.
What came to define early WoW was the social aspect of the game. The world’s tightly controlled zones encouraged players to encounter other people as they explored Azeroth. Additionally, when creating a character, players had to choose between two factions: the Alliance and the Horde, giving players an instant sense of loyalty. Whether grouping up to take on a dungeon, rallying in a band of 40 to take down a giant raid boss, or storming into an enemy capital as an army of low-level cannon fodder, every player has the power to It seems to have a story about the era of. Azeroth.
A perfect storm is brewing…World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. Photo: Blizzard Entertainment
I still romanticize my role sneaking into the Alliance capital of Stormwind with a group of low-level undead rogues. I imagined it to be a daring attack, but in the end I had to run for my life. Another time, I asked a better-equipped passerby for help in defeating a particularly formidable monster in the Night Elf Zone of Darkshore, but ended up chatting with the person for hours. . Over the next few months, I messaged that same player.
WOW was a completely simple phenomenon. Blizzard had to more than double its workforce within a year to answer player questions, resolve technical issues, and keep servers running. WoW achieved impressive subscriber numbers, which were further increased by the release of two expansion packs: The Burning Crusade in 2007 and Wrath of the Lich King in 2008.
By 2010, over 12 million players had active monthly subscriptions. Some called themselves WoWaholics. Other players find WoW to be an escape from the constraints of real life, as evidenced by Mads Steen’s moving story recently told in the Netflix documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin. Although Mads suffered from muscular dystropy until his untimely death at the age of 25, he lived a vibrant life in WoW. His parents were completely unaware of his son’s life until online friends sent them long messages from all over Europe telling them how much their son had affected their lives. Five members of Mads’ WoW guild traveled to Norway for his funeral.
But no game can stay in the spotlight forever. WOW went from strength to strength over its first six years, but as the game got older, so did the players. Ion Hazzikostas, then lead game designer, now game director put it down 2014: “If you started this game in 2004, you were a student with a lot of free time, and now you’re a career woman with a family.” Blizzard maintains existing fans while attracting new generations. It was necessary to attract. The 2010 Cataclysm expansion decided to revolutionize the game by overhauling the world with a new design philosophy suited to the faster gameplay that modern gamers were thought to demand. . This change remains controversial.
Today, exploring Azeroth is an almost unrecognizable experience compared to its early days. WoW has had several different eras. The classic WoW era lasted until Wrath of the Lich King (2004-2008). The world overhaul that characterized Cataclysm (2010) to Warlords of Draenor (2014). From Legion (2016) to Shadowlands (2020), the pivot to a long endgame grind that allows players to become infinitely more powerful. and the modern era of WoW, starting with Dragonflight (2022) and continuing through the recently launched expansion The War Within (2024). These “eras” are so distinct that it feels like the game is being reinvented every six years.
Social aspects have also changed over time. As Taliesin – one half of a couple YouTube Duo Taliesin & Evitel – says: 2004 was the era of bulletin boards, forums, and a more “underground” Internet. Today’s internet is much shorter and crisper. It’s TikTok, a social media focused on one or two megasites. What we do socially on the internet has changed, and so has WoW. ”
Anger… 2021 Protesters. Photo: David McNew/AFP/Getty Images
I often hear complaints that WoW has changed so much that it has lost its original spirit. Players were often confused about design decisions that they felt conflicted with the traditional experience. Unfortunately for Blizzard, these peaked after the launch of Shadowlands in 2020, just as the perfect storm was brewing for the company. Not only has the coronavirus upended game development, but in 2021 Blizzard was hit with a lawsuit brought by the California Department of Fair Employment, accusing it of a “frat boy” workplace culture, including sexual harassment and poor treatment of women. He was accused of encouraging.
The lawsuit had far-reaching implications for the company and the gaming industry as a whole. Several senior executives, including Blizzard President J. Allen Black, fell downand the company agreed to pay millions of dollars to address concerns of sex discrimination and pay inequality. The lawsuit ultimately helped form the first labor union at a major U.S. gaming company.
Especially within WOW, this suit brought about rapid changes in the game. Characters named after accused abusers have been renamed, and many in-game assets deemed inappropriate in light of the accusations have been replaced or tweaked, including sexual depictions of women. Many of the changes were ridiculed by the player base, prompting Blizzard to combat toxicity. Instead of “turning women into fruit bowls””.
A showdown in Azeroth…a great battle. Photo: Blizzard Entertainment
Longdale had just joined Blizzard in 2020 when the lawsuit began. “It was heartbreaking,” she says. “I’d only been here a few months, and it was really heartbreaking to see the team so devastated thinking about what the future holds.” The fallout from this already exists about the state of the game. Combined with the discomfort it caused, it could easily have been the beginning of the end for WoW. However, the game was able to hold up due to the commitment of both the WoW team and new Blizzard leadership to come back better. “What I’m really proud of is the huge increase in diversity on our team,” Longdale says. The content we create now has more “voices” and people are creating highly personal content based on their own experiences. ”
Every time WOW has been in danger of losing relevance over the years, it has reinvented itself and managed to come back. And although its cultural influence has diminished over time, the influence it has had is undeniable. Countless fantasy role-playing worlds and characters draw inspiration from WoW’s pantheon of heroes. This game is in the DNA of subsequent generations of video games that have been developed since 2004.
Today’s WoW may not evoke the same sense of wonder that early players felt in 2004 when they roamed the green hills of Stranglethorn or boarded their first ships from Kalimdor to the Eastern Kingdoms. But the fact that it’s still going on and changing is a testament to the great foundation we laid 20 years ago. And what about the future of WoW? “My goal, and the team’s goal, is that WoW is more than just a game,” Longdale says. “It’s essentially part of your lifestyle. It could be for your friends, or it could be for parents playing with their children. It’s a fascinating fantasy world that connects you with people. ”
Titan’s north polar region, imaged using Cassini’s radar signature, shows blue hydrocarbon oceans.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Italian Space Agency / USGS
The most detailed look yet at Saturn’s moon Titan’s strange lakes has revealed a diverse marine landscape similar to Earth’s, with a mix of freshwater rivers and saltwater oceans.
Unlike Earth’s watery oceans, Titan’s lakes are composed of methane and ethane, which are liquid at the planet’s average surface temperature, about −179 °C (−290 °F).
Radar measurements from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017, suggested differences in the lakes’ properties, including their composition and surface waves, but the signals didn’t contain enough information to distinguish between them.
now, Valerio Poggiali Poggiali and his colleagues at Cornell University in New York used a different radar technique to map the composition and surface of Titan’s oceans, revealing that the amount of ethane increases as you move south across the planet from the north pole. “The further north you go, the cleaner and purer the oceans become. They’re dominated by methane,” Poggiali says.
Previous radar measurements were made using signals sent and received at the same location on the Cassini spacecraft, which meant the reflected radio waves were polarized in one direction, or twisted.
The new study analyzed signals from Cassini’s radar that were reflected off the lake’s surface and picked up by NASA’s Deep Space Network, a radio antenna on Earth. The shallow angle of the reflected signal meant it contained two different polarized waves, giving Poggiali and his colleagues more information about the lake’s properties.
They found that many of the rivers and estuaries that feed the lake have rough surfaces caused by wind-driven waves, which could be a sign of active tides and currents feeding into the lake, Poggiali said. “Surface activity is very important if we want to plan future missions like a Titan submarine, but also to better understand Titan’s environment in terms of wind and atmospheric properties.”
Poggiali and his colleagues also found that the methane content was higher before the river flowed into the lake, which could help trace the methane and ethane cycle on Titan, Poggiali says. Ingo Muller-Wodarg “On Earth, when rivers flow into large, salty oceans, we find that the water becomes less saline near where the river flows in,” say researchers from Imperial College London. “Something similar is happening here, but it’s not the salinity that’s the problem, it’s the relative proportions of methane and ethane.”
Ever wondered if any moons in the solar system have a dense atmosphere like Earth? Currently, scientists believe that Saturn’s moon Titan is the only one with such an atmosphere. Despite being 2.5 times smaller than Earth, Titan has an atmospheric pressure 1.5 times greater than Earth’s. Studies of Titan’s atmosphere from outside the solar system have shown that it consists of around 94% nitrogen, 6% methane, 0.1% hydrogen, and small amounts of complex organic molecules. The Huygens mission data provides more insight into this.
Initially, scientists thought that Titan’s haze formed through the breakdown and recombination of nitrogen and methane by sunlight. However, this explanation couldn’t account for the presence of complex organic molecules which require high temperatures to form. Recent research suggests that these molecules may have originated during a meteorite impact event in Titan’s atmosphere, particularly due to the proximity of Titan to Saturn’s E ring which disperses organic material from moons like Enceladus.
To test this new theory, researchers at Princeton University created a model to predict the formation of molecules during meteorite impacts in Titan’s atmosphere. By combining data from observations of Saturn’s rings and Titan’s atmospheric chemistry from the Huygens probe, they estimated the types of organic molecules that could result from these impacts. They found that only meteorites larger than 0.02 grams could trigger such events in Titan’s atmosphere, with material mostly originating from atolls surrounding the solar system.
The team also identified a hot zone known as the “Cylindrical shock wave” around the falling meteorite, reaching temperatures of 10,000 K. This wave could facilitate the synthesis of complex organic molecules at lower temperatures in the region surrounding the impact. Meteorites falling from Enceladus are suggested to contribute significantly to Titan’s organic-rich haze layer, particularly at altitudes where shock waves are most efficient in synthesizing organic molecules.
The researchers proposed that observations from future missions, such as Dragonfly, could further validate their models by studying the frequency of medium-sized meteorite impacts on Titan. These observations could provide more insights into the formation of Titan’s unique atmosphere and iconic haze layer.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/University of Idaho
Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has rocky coastlines around its methane seas and lakes that appear to have been carved out by waves, and a NASA mission launching in 2028 may be able to get a closer look.
Titan is the only body in the solar system other than Earth that has liquid on its surface. It has lakes and oceans made of hydrocarbons such as liquid methane, ethane, and other organic molecules. Scientists think that winds in Titan's thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere drive the waves in these lakes, but this has never been observed directly because Titan's atmosphere is too hazy to see through.
now, Rose Palermo Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey in Florida and their colleagues found that the shape of Titan's coastline is best explained by the presence of waves that have eroded the ocean surface over eons.
Palermo and his team looked at the shorelines around Titan's largest oceans and lakes, including Kraken Mare and Ligeia Mare, and compared them to coastlines on Earth with known origins, such as Lake Rotoef in New Zealand, which initially formed by floods and later was eroded by waves. The team then created different simulations of Titan's oceans, including those in which the shores were eroded by waves or by dissolving their edges.
Photographed by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, Ligeia Mare on Saturn's moon Titan has a variety of edges that appear to have been carved by waves.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell
The researchers found that images of Titan's coastline, best depicted by wave simulations, resemble Earth's wave-eroded coastlines.
“It's still tentative, but I'm very excited about it.” Ingo Muller-Vodarg The Imperial College London researchers say that although the study did not observe waves themselves, it is very strong evidence that waves exist. Dune-like structures.
The only way to truly verify that waves exist is to send a spacecraft to the surface, like NASA's Dragonfly drone mission, scheduled to launch in 2028, Mueller-Vaudergues said.
Studying Titan's coastlines may also help us understand how the first coasts on Earth formed, Palermo says: “Titan is a unique laboratory for studying coastal processes because it is not influenced by humans or plants. It's a place where we can study coasts only as physical processes.”
This gorgeous, but smelly, corpse flower bloomed on June 18th. Royal Botanic Gardens, KewIn London however it tends to be only for a short period, lasting only 24 to 36 hours.
Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanium) also known as Titan Aramgets its name from the foul smell it gives off, resembling rotting meat, which is so strong it can be heard for hundreds of metres. The smell is produced to attract rare pollinating insects, such as flesh flies and carrion beetles, to the short-lived flowers, and must be strong enough to do its job during the short period the plant is in flower, because the plant may not flower again for many years.
Strictly speaking, this up to 3 metre tall plant isn’t one flower, but many. The inner inflorescence, or spadix, emerges from a purple, pleated collar called a bract and looks like a yellow obelisk. The inflorescence, or cluster of flowers, lies in the protected area between the bract and the spadix.
If you happen to see and smell it, the smell may not be what you expect: it can change during the flower’s short lifespan and can smell like rotting flesh, as well as pleasant excrement or warm garbage.
This rare plant is endemic to the rainforests of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, but is cultivated in many botanical gardens around the world for its beauty and the crowds it attracts when it blooms. The first time it is known to flower outside of Sumatra was in 1889 at Kew Botanical Gardens.
NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology/Stephane Le Mouelik, Virginia Pasek
Saturn’s moon Titan is home to strange “magical islands” that appear and disappear over hours to weeks. These so-called islands are actually porous, sponge-like masses of snow that can slowly fill with liquid before sinking.
Titan’s thick atmosphere is filled with complex organic molecules that can clump together and fall to the moon’s surface like snow. Sintin Yu Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio thought that snow could be the cause of the magical islands. To test their idea, they took advantage of what we know about these atmospheric compounds and how they are expected to interact with Titan’s oceans.
Titan’s liquid is methane, not water, so any solids on the surface of these oceans would normally be expected to sink quickly. Water molecules tend to stick together and displace other substances, but methane easily sticks to other molecules, so the surface tension of a pool of liquid methane is very low.
“Water molecules just love themselves by excluding certain molecules,” he says. michael marasca from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California was not involved in the study. “But if you put methane on the same surface, it’ll start crawling all over the place.” That means Titan’s methane oceans and lakes should immediately swallow up any solids that are expected to float. It means that.
But that clearly won’t happen on the magical island, which appeared as a temporary bright spot in observations from the Cassini spacecraft. “For us to see magical islands, they cannot float briefly and then immediately sink,” Yu said in the paper. statement. “You have to stay afloat for a while, but not forever.” Researchers have found a solution to this problem. When large amounts of snow accumulate on the coast, they can form sponge-like, porous ice. Once these porous “icebergs” separated from the land, they could float in Titan’s oceans for long enough to rival Cassini’s observations. The researchers calculated that this would work if the sponge-like structure contained enough free space (at least about 25 to 50 percent, depending on the exact composition of the ice).
However, this does not mean that these mysterious islands are definitely porous icebergs. “We’re narrowing down different scenarios for the magical island, but we don’t know the answer yet,” Malasca says. Other possible explanations include nitrogen gas bubbles, waves caused by wind or solid ocean deposits. However, this provides evidence that Titan’s temporary islands may actually be suspended matter from this strange world’s atmosphere.
NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology/Stephane Le Mouelik, Virginia Pasek
Saturn’s moon Titan is home to strange “magical islands” that appear and disappear over hours to weeks. These so-called islands are actually porous, sponge-like masses of snow that can slowly fill with liquid before sinking.
Titan’s thick atmosphere is filled with complex organic molecules that can clump together and fall to the moon’s surface like snow. Sintin Yu Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio thought that snow could be the cause of the magical islands. To test their idea, they took advantage of what we know about these atmospheric compounds and how they are expected to interact with Titan’s oceans.
Titan’s liquid is methane, not water, so any solids on the surface of these oceans would normally be expected to sink quickly. Water molecules tend to stick together and displace other substances, but methane easily sticks to other molecules, so the surface tension of a pool of liquid methane is very low.
“Water molecules just love themselves by excluding certain molecules,” he says. michael marasca from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California was not involved in the study. “But if you put methane on the same surface, it will start crawling all over the place.” That means Titan’s methane oceans and lakes should immediately swallow up any solids that are expected to float. It means that.
But that clearly won’t happen on the magical island, which appeared as a temporary bright spot in observations from the Cassini spacecraft. “For us to see magical islands, they cannot float briefly and then immediately sink,” Yu said in the paper. statement. “You have to stay afloat for a while, but not forever.”
Researchers have found a solution to this problem. When large amounts of snow accumulate on the coast, they can form sponge-like, porous ice. Once these porous “icebergs” separated from the land, they could float in Titan’s oceans for long enough to rival Cassini’s observations. The researchers calculated that this would work if the sponge-like structure contained enough free space (at least about 25 to 50 percent, depending on the exact composition of the ice).
However, this does not mean that these mysterious islands are definitely porous icebergs. “We’re narrowing down different scenarios for the magical island, but we don’t know the answer yet,” Malasca says. Other possible explanations include nitrogen gas bubbles, waves caused by wind or solid ocean deposits. However, this provides evidence that Titan’s temporary islands may actually be suspended matter from this strange world’s atmosphere.
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