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Rain On Saturn's Titan

Posted by timothy on from the singin'-in-the-freezing-methane,-just-[aaakk] dept.

BradeRunna writes: "Space.com has a very interesting article describing earth-like weather (even rain) on Saturn's moon, Titan. Especially of note as the surface temperatures hover around minus 288 degrees Fahrenheit. Guess we'll have to wait until the Cassini spacecraft makes it out there in Summer 2004 to get the full skinny ..." A sidebar to the article is a cute comparison between Earth's weather and Titan's.

11 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Rain? Yay by mbadolato · · Score: 3
    Especially of note as the surface temp temperatures hover around minus 288 degrees Fahrenheit.

    Rain AND -288F? Oooo sign me up! When's our first mission??

    Aw hell, I can get rain and 0F by moving back to New England =)

  2. Re:rain on titan by mallie_mcg · · Score: 4

    Methane rain (That must smell nice)

    If i am not mistaken i believe that methane is actually pretty much odorless, when we use it for gas to homes and the like we add chemicals so that we can smell it, and not die (in AU at least)

    btw, does anyone know of a site that will point out the best hardware for a dual Linux / Windows box, for gaming and work purposes?


    How every version of MICROS~1 Windows(TM) comes to exist.

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    Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
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  3. rain on titan by cluge · · Score: 3

    Methane rain (That must smell nice), pools of liquid methane with other hydrocarbons on the surface. Sounds like Titan is natures on refueling station.

    --
    "Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
  4. Weather on Titan... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

    Constant rain... hydrocarbons and methane in the air, making it patently unbreathable... -288 degree temperature.

    Hell, that sounds like the average winter in South Dakota! Throw in some livestock and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Maybe when we send our first probes their we'll find Mount Zorbarmore and Wa'al Drug left behind by the aliens...

  5. How F-ing much is -288F by Gladiator · · Score: 3

    In C.
    Just for those readers born in the 20th century.

  6. Mark Twain in Space by kfg · · Score: 3

    The whole thing reminds me of the Mark Twain quote:

    " The worst winter I ever lived through was the summer I spent in San Francisco."

    I guess Sam never summered over on Titan.

  7. -288 �F = -178 �C by Roy+Ward · · Score: 3

    (-288-32)*5/9 = -178 C

    Of course, I suspect that both these numbers have spurious accuracy.

  8. Hmmm.. thats interesting .... by deglr6328 · · Score: 3

    Now where have I seen this before...? Oh yeah, thats right, on Slashdot. :o] at least check the category youre posting under to see if that story has been run within the past WEEK!

    --
    - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
  9. I believe I can fly. by Forge · · Score: 5
    From The article.

    Titan's gravity is only about one seventh that of Earth. The intense chill, however, means a low energy atmosphere that hangs around, instead of escaping this relatively weak force of gravity. So Titan's atmosphere is denser than Earth's and extends much higher into the sky.

    Lower gravity and denser atmosphere means that you could not only survive on Titan with a much simpler space suite than you need for work on the moon but you can also fly with simple wings sprouting from your arms.

    No. I am serious about both points. Since the atmosphere is denser than earth but less dens than say water, you don't need a pressure suite just something completely sealed that wont tear easily and keeps the Methane off your skin. More importantly it only has to deal with cold temperatures not the -200 to +200 degree fluctuations in earth orbit.

    About the wings. The reason we were never able to fly with arm mounted wings is that #1 we are generally not strong enough to build manipulate wings that can support a human and #2 those wings have to be so very large.

    However on Titan they need only be 1/7th the size of your tipical glider's wingspan. Posibly less if you consider the denser atmosfare. So just as we can fly throgh water by flaping our bare arms we should be able to fly on titan with tiny wings just barley longer than our arms and as little as 2 feet thick. I.e. The sort of thing that can be built into a plastic suite that's all soft on the outside to prevent sparks from igniting that methane.

    Better yet wings of that size could be made retractable and the smaller suite means you could store a larger air supply. A rebrether ( filters out your own CO2 ) would do wonders too.

    R. Kelly would be proud.

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    --= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
    1. Re:I believe I can fly. by DoomHaven · · Score: 3

      I don't think you have to worry about sparks; you still need oxygen to ignite methane, and I have not read anything that indicates that Titan has a significant oxygen atmosphere.

      I must say, Forge, that this is probably the most interesting comment in this whole discussion. It reminds me of what the humans believe the Overlords' world looks like in Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End"; since the Overlords are huge, but still have flight-worthy wings, that their home planet must have low gravity and a dense atmosphere.

      --
      "Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
  10. What about that hardware problem? by Lonesmurf · · Score: 4

    I havn't been around /. a lot recently, but I don't remember hearing anything about this hardware problem that they recently discovered.

    Apparently some nincompoop on the Cassini design team decided that it would be smart to not design the reciever on the orbiting probe to have enough bandwidth to take in all of the data that the probes in the atmosphere/on the surface could send up. Not smart.

    Rami
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    rJames.org - illustration