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Titan May Have an Ocean
olsmeister writes "Titan has been a particular focus of attention because of its dense, complex atmosphere, its weather and its lakes and oceans. Now it looks as if Titan is even stranger still. The evidence comes from careful observations of Titan's orbit and rotation. This indicates that Titan has an orbit similar to our Moon's; it always presents the same face toward Saturn and its axis of rotation tilts by about 0.3 degrees. This data allows astronomers to work out Titan's moment of inertia and points to something interesting. The numbers indicate that Titan's moment of inertia can only be explained if it is a solid body that is denser near the surface than it is at its center."
You don't have to be a quantum mechanic,
To know that this ocean is a little Methanic,
If atmospheric densities remain the same,
Then other hydrocarbons are not to blame,
For the process being just a little too Titanic.
Stuff like this brings out the inner child in me, wanting to explore and see these discoveries with my own eyes. Sometimes I wish I was born 500+ years from now so I could actually be able to explore these strange worlds with my own eyes. Not saying humans would have these places colonized but at least have some sort of outpost nearby able to fully explore these places robotically or with human presence.
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
No, I didn't RTFA - why do you ask?
Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
If there's one thing that should be included there, it's that the 'ocean' isn't a surface ocean, like Earth's, but a SUBSURFACE one, like Europa's!
Editors, for fuck's sake, please check the submissions, not only for grammar, but for factual accuracy too!
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has been a particular focus of attention because of its dense, complex atmosphere, its weather and its lakes and oceans.
You want to go to Titan? All it has is that run down amusement park.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Um, water ice floats because of a peculiarity in H20. Most solids are actually denser than their liquid forms.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
And its easy to tell of its hard boiled or raw. It might be easer to see if you have one of each. Grats to the Scientists that can do this with a moon.
sweet! we can land there!
Anybody want my mod points?
After six months of careful study i have determined that the presence of weather, lakes and oceans on Titan indicate that it may in fact have an individual ocean. In the next six months i plan to show that Titan also has an individual lake, followed by showing the existence of an individual cloud. May i have another funding check now please?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I'm not sure what the ice on the surface would be made of, or what the density of the liquid methane ocean would be since density depends on pressure, but Methane Clathrate ice is about twice as dense as liquid methane is at atmospheric pressure. Pure methane ice is less dense than liquid methane, so would behave like water ice, but I think it's unlikely to be pure.
(... and not even the ice geysers of Enceladus should sway our choice).
Why? Because as Professor Peter Ward claims in his very interesting book on astro-biology "Life as we do not know it", only "Titan holds the promise of not just alien life but of MORE THAN ONE KIND OF FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT alien life". (emphasis mine). There could be."three distinct empires of life, from two entirely different trees; CHON life of two kinds (ammono and water CHON life) and silicon life." (p. 234). While he said the "CHON ammono life would be found, presumably beneath the ice, in the ammonia ocean" and the "silicon life would exist, if it existed at all, in the ethane-methane lakes of Titan's surface" he thought the "earthlike" CHON life would be found in the transient freshwater lakes after an asteroid or comet impact.
Well, if there is a (huge) water ocean beneath the ice (and below the ammonia ocean?) the earthlike CHON life wouldn't have to depend on transient impact events! I guess the reason why the researchers believe the ocean to be water (as opposed to the methane the Technology Review editors seem to think), is because the temperature and pressure at those depths make water the most likely candidate. So anyway to recap, on Titan there are a possibility of THREE COMPLETELY different "empires" (his term) of life with only one of them having even the remotest possibility of being anything like life on earth (even if it is earthlike CHON life, that means only that it uses the carbon and other atoms at energy levels corresponding to liquid water, they might not use DNA, RNA or even proteins!).
The reasons why (he suggests) we should skip over Mars, Europa (and I presume Enceladus) is as follows: while Mars was certainly once capable of supporting (Earthlike CHON) life, now it is cold, dry and likely dead. For Europa (and Enceladus) he claims that while they have the liquid water necessary to support (again earthlike CHON) life, they don't have enough energy. His calculations show that the gravitational flexing caused by Jupiter, the main source of energy for Europa, would only be enough to drive a modest ecosystem that would be dispersed in an ocean of millions of cubic kilometers of water. Too dilute to be sustainable. (The same would be presumably be true to an even greater extent of Enceledus).
Titan, on the other hand, is large enough to presumably be able to generate heat internally (it is the largest moon in the solar system) and also gets (some) energy from tidal interactions with Saturn. An interesting additional input is the (weak) ultraviolet rays from the (distant) sun that hits its atmosphere (the only substantial one of any moon) and creates a whole host of organic compounds. Finally if his speculations on the other empires of life are correct, their much colder metabolism may allow (require?) them to exist on much less energy our liquid water based ones do.
This is, of course, rank speculation but the finding a new empire of life would be truly monumental, it would mean life is likely present in every solar system in the galaxy. Of course even finding "earthlike" CHON life would be astounding. Anyway, if the beauty of Saturn's rings weren't enough, this is another great reason to go back. Besides landing and exploring Titan could be comparatively easy. Aeorobraking, aerocapture and reentry will save a lot of fuel compared with landing on an airless world. Parachutes alone will work extremely well in the dense atmosphere and low gravity (unlike Mars) as will planes and hot "air" balloons. The surface ocean is likely to be very calm so boats and submersibles should be usable. There is also land for rovers and drilling operations. The only problem is distance (and money), so let's get cracking on nuclear powered ion engines!
FTFS: "The numbers indicate that Titan's moment of inertia can only be explained if it is a solid body that is denser near the surface than it is at its centre"
FTFA: "It's also worth pointing out that there is another explanation for Titan's strange moment of inertia. The calculations assume that the moon's orbit is in a steady state but it's also possible that Titan's orbit is changing, perhaps because it has undergone a recent shift due to some large object passing nearby, a comet or asteroid, for example."
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Too bad it would take about a year to get to Titan. The best option would be to find some way to go 10 percent the speed of light like a Fusion rocket engine. Then we could get there in 12 hours (relative to the traveler).
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
I'm not sure that Saturn would be a good place to stop, considering the ENORMOUS gravity well it has. You'd spend all the fuel you just loaded just to get out of orbit.