Jul 17, 2018 12:30 AM
(This post was last modified: Jul 17, 2018 04:25 AM by Yazata.)
Here's a pretty good video describing Titan and showing what few images we have. Despite being a moon of Saturn, Titan is nevertheless bigger than Mercury or Pluto and would definitely be classified as a planet if it orbited the Sun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiD-NMq0pRE
The beauty of Titan is that it has a thick atmosphere and liquid on its surface. The liquid gathers in bodies larger than Lake Superior, big enough that you couldn't see across even if the atmosphere wasn't hazy. Seas.
Except... that the fluid isn't water, it's liquid methane. (Coincidently, that's what the BFR uses as fuel.) The place appears to be literally awash in "fossil fuels" (except on Titan, they aren't fossilized plant matter). They estimate that it might have ten times the hydrocarbon energy reserves found on Earth. There's rain (of liquid methane) on Titan and there are rivers. The scenery will look vaguely like Earth scenery because of the fluid and wind weathering.
But... the rock in the mountains isn't stone as we know it on Earth. It's solid water ice, which at Titanian temperatures is as solid as granite and plays the role of stone in that chilly place. (Warmer than Winnipeg though.) So the scene on Titan might initially look kind of familiar to the Earthly eye, but things get weirder if you look more closely.
It's interesting to speculate whether something analogous to life could have appeared and evolved in the seas of liquid methane. One of the scientists in the video says that if we find cryogenic life in those conditions outlandish, if there are native scientists on Titan (unlikely) they would probably think of our water-based life the same way. To them, our cells would be made out of the extraordinarily hot material that plays the role of lava on Titan, the molten rock that flows out of their (cryo)volcanoes.
But all this being said, as weird as Titan is and as fascinating as it might be, it's probably nothing compared to some of the alien environments on some of the exoplanets out there. There are probably some real sights to be seen in the universe. But we will never know if we don't go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiD-NMq0pRE
The beauty of Titan is that it has a thick atmosphere and liquid on its surface. The liquid gathers in bodies larger than Lake Superior, big enough that you couldn't see across even if the atmosphere wasn't hazy. Seas.
Except... that the fluid isn't water, it's liquid methane. (Coincidently, that's what the BFR uses as fuel.) The place appears to be literally awash in "fossil fuels" (except on Titan, they aren't fossilized plant matter). They estimate that it might have ten times the hydrocarbon energy reserves found on Earth. There's rain (of liquid methane) on Titan and there are rivers. The scenery will look vaguely like Earth scenery because of the fluid and wind weathering.
But... the rock in the mountains isn't stone as we know it on Earth. It's solid water ice, which at Titanian temperatures is as solid as granite and plays the role of stone in that chilly place. (Warmer than Winnipeg though.) So the scene on Titan might initially look kind of familiar to the Earthly eye, but things get weirder if you look more closely.
It's interesting to speculate whether something analogous to life could have appeared and evolved in the seas of liquid methane. One of the scientists in the video says that if we find cryogenic life in those conditions outlandish, if there are native scientists on Titan (unlikely) they would probably think of our water-based life the same way. To them, our cells would be made out of the extraordinarily hot material that plays the role of lava on Titan, the molten rock that flows out of their (cryo)volcanoes.
But all this being said, as weird as Titan is and as fascinating as it might be, it's probably nothing compared to some of the alien environments on some of the exoplanets out there. There are probably some real sights to be seen in the universe. But we will never know if we don't go.
