Before that, Lunine said, more distant observations showed that methane was chemically active in Titan's atmosphere and that it was probably recombining to make more complex organic molecules.
12.
Ultimately, Lunine and his colleagues will consider the mission a success if they find evidence of any sort of chemical reactions that can provide clues about how life emerges from a hydrocarbon stew.
13.
Jonathan Lunine, a professor of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said a powerful infrared observatory set to launch in late 2001 will likely shed more light on stellar debris disks.
14.
One possibility, according to Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona, would be a space observatory that could look for abnormalities in light when a solar system passes in front of an even more distant star.
15.
Lunine said the fact that no craters had been seen " tells us that Titan's surface is young, " its basins filled in with material from such volcanic upwellings or hydrocarbon precipitation from the sky.
16.
With Jonathan Lunine and Paul Withers of the University of Arizona and Chris McKay at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif ., I have shown that Saturn's giant moon Titan seems to follow the principle too.
17.
"And for all we know now, " Lunine said, " Titan could have been extremely dynamic, with an active surface modified continually-- possibly by moving liquids with waves and an enormous amount of geological activity ."
18.
In Lunine's view, presence of organisms in Titan's lakes would mean a second, independent origin of life within the Solar System, implying that life has a high probability of emerging on habitable worlds throughout the cosmos.
19.
Studying Neptune's evolving weather, said astrophysical theorist Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona, " because it does not have continents and oceans, offers a simpler picture " that can allow scientists to hone their computer models.
20.
"What Cassini has shown us this week . . . ( is that ) Titan is an extremely dynamic and active place, not simply in its atmosphere but on its surface as well, " said Jonathan Lunine, an interdisciplinary scientist.
