Polar views

The north pole of Titan, courtesy of Cassini:

Here’s why we think the dark patches are lakes, which everyone is very excited about. The first snapshots of Titan’s southern polar region have also found a couple of probable small lakes, although nothing yet on the scale seen in the image above.
The north pole of the Earth, courtesy of Nasa’s Earth Observatory.

This nicely shows the loss of ice cover in the North-West Passage, which some people are no doubt also very excited about (anyone who owns shares in shipping or oil exploration companies springs to mind); but I think my view tend more towards that of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, Al Gore, the IPCC, and confused Inuit, polar bears and seals all around the Arctic. To wit, it’s a little bit worrying…