Abstract

Titan is the only moon in the solar system that has a dense atmosphere. The atmosphere consists of mostly nitrogen and methane. Instruments on board the Cassini Orbiter have measured the presence of many other interesting chemical species on Titan's surface and atmosphere. Recently, Nelson and co-workers have found evidence among Cassini data which raises the possibility that Titan may currently have conditions similar to those in which life appeared on Earth.

About the Speaker

Dr. Robert M. Nelson is a Senior Research Scientist who has spent the last 15 years as an investigator on the NASA Cassini Saturn Orbiter Mission. He is a Co-Investigator on the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) onboard Cassini. While analyzing VIMS data, he and his colleagues (including a researcher at Mt. SAC) have discovered suggestions that Saturn's moon Titan is geologically active and may be the best candidate in our solar system for having conditions that are similar to those on Earth at the time that life first appeared.

Nelson was born in California. He received his Baccalaureate degree from the City College of New York, then earned his Masters degree from Connecticut Wesleyan University, followed by his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Before coming to JPL, he was on the faculty of Youngstown State University. Nelson has been on the JPL staff for three decades. He was a co-investigator on the Voyager mission to the outer planets, and was the Project Scientist on Deep Space 1, NASA's first mission to fly close by and photograph a comet.

Dr. Nelson has received a NASA Exceptional Service Medal for a scientific achievement, and numerous NASA achievement awards. He has served as the chairman of the largest division of the American Astronomical Society - its Division for Planetary Sciences.