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Titan's Tropical Weather

Posted by kdawson on from the get-a-tan-from-standing-in-the-methane-rain dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Climate researchers Ray Pierrehumbert and Jonathan Mitchell at the University of Chicago say that Titan, the only moon in the solar system large enough to support an atmosphere, has many of the same weather features as Earth, but with completely different substances that work at temperatures that plunge down to minus 170 degrees Celsius. Pierrehumbert and Mitchell call Titan's climate 'tropical,' a climate that is warm to hot and wet year-round, because on Titan methane assumes the role of water and exists in enough abundance to condense into rain and form puddles on the surface. Titan's tropical nature means that scientists can observe the behavior of its clouds using theories they've developed to understand Earth's tropics. For example, Titan's atmosphere produces an updraft where surface winds converge to lift evaporated methane up to cooler temperatures and lower pressures, where much of it condenses and forms clouds, 'a well-known feature on Earth called an ITCZ, the inter-tropical convergence zone,' Mitchell says."

8 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yeah but... by volcanopele · · Score: 5, Informative

    Har har, but no, it wouldn't. Methane is odorless. That's why gas companies have to include additives with natural gas, so leaks can be detected.

    --
    The Gish Bar Times - Blog covering Jupiter's moon Io
  2. Re:Yeah but... by renehollan · · Score: 2, Informative
    No.

    Methane, while produced in the gut of most animals, is odorless. The smell of flatus, to which you seam to be alluding, is mostly due to sulfur-containing compounds: Hydrogen Sulfide (in the case of the notorious "egg farts"), and various mercaptans, IIRC.

    --
    You could've hired me.
  3. Ganymede is larger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    and also has an atmosphere.

  4. "Life"? by headkase · · Score: 3, Informative

    Starting with the definition of Life as a process, I wonder if on Titan are the chemicals that exist there capable of encoding information such as the chemicals in DNA here on Earth? Life as we know it works with water and carbon as it's base substrates but these are not the only substrates a process that encodes structures that reproduce is limited to.

    --
    Shh.
  5. Re:The biggest factor by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(Stephen_Baxter)

    enjoy.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  6. It depends on other elements by mangu · · Score: 2, Informative
    Life as we know it works with water and carbon as it's base substrates but these are not the only substrates a process that encodes structures that reproduce is limited to.


    I'm not a biochemist, but life does not depend only on water and carbon. IIRC, the most abundant elements in living matter are the "CHONPS" group: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphor, and sulfur. Although living cells are *mostly* carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, several other elements are indispensable to life.


    I'm rather skeptic of finding life on Titan, because lower temperature means less energy, which means less chemical reactions happening. Less reactions means less probability of hitting on the right combination needed to get a self-reproducing molecule.

  7. Re:Question from a sci-fi geek by M.+Baranczak · · Score: 3, Informative

    Valuable enough to offset the cost of transporting it from Titan? I really can't think of any substance that's that expensive. Well, maybe inkjet ink.

  8. Sorry, but I'm going to Nitpick by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 2, Informative

    Titan, the only moon in the solar system large enough to support an atmosphere Sorry to nitpick, but this just isn't true. I can think of at least two other moons that have atmospheres (Io at Jupiter and Triton at Neptune), Titan's is just the thickest and most Earth-like. It can be argued (and is, but some researchers) that even the Moon has an atmosphere, it's just very thin and made of silicates and sodium.

    In any case, not only is Titan not alone, it's not the "only moon large enough..." Ganymede at Jupiter is actually larger than Titan, both in radius and (especially) in mass. If it were only a matter of size, Ganymede would have a thicker atmosphere than Titan. Heck, Titan's surface pressure is 1.5 times that of Earth, so clearly size isn't the only issue.

    Sorry for the interruption, please carry on. :-)