io9
It's bigger than Mercury, has dune seas like Tatooine (or Arrakis) and has the coolest name of any moon: Titan. The Cassini spacecraft is still revealing many of its secrets, with another flyby scheduled just a few weeks from now. Here are five reasons to get excited about Saturn's largest satellite.
1. Titan is the only moon with a thick, stable atmosphere. It's mostly made of nitrogen, with a decent helping of methane and other hydrocarbons. It's not exactly a breathable atmosphere, but it's still pretty cool. Even better, Titan has Earth-like weather. Wind and rain sweep the surface of Titan, shaping its geography and producing seasonal effects. Some scientists say Titan is a lot like a young Earth, only much colder.
2. Titan has dune seas. As much as 40 percent of the equatorial region might be covered by "sand" dunes hundreds of meters high. They probably aren't made of silicate particles the way Earth sand is. Rather, Titan's sand could be precipitated from the atmosphere. The dunes are sort of like semi-permanent snow drifts.
3. Titan has cryovolcanoes. There are mountains on Titan, along with evidence of volcanic activity. The interior of Titan probably doesn't support the same kind of heat and pressure that we find within the Earth. Instead, Titan's volcanoes might be the result of highly pressurized ice fracturing and spewing liquid water and ammonia into the atmosphere.
4. Titan has liquid features on the surface, like the hydrocarbon lakes pictured in the computer rendering above. Earlier Cassini data found proof of methane lakes in Titan's polar regions. Even more interesting, there might be an entire ocean lying beneath Titan's surface. This leads us to the best reason that Titan is awesome...
5. Titan might be our best bet for finding extraterrestrial life within our solar system. If the subsurface ocean exists, it would be made of liquid water and ammonia and would be warmer than the surface. The chemical makeup of the atmosphere and the active weather and geology have lead some scientists to propose that the conditions on Titan are right for the formation of primitive life. That's exciting. Image by Steven Hobbs via NASA.
Comments
If they ever revive Seaquest DSV, it would be cool to have the sub trolling around the oceans of Titan instead of Earth.
Thanks for the Space Porn IO9, it's always welcome.
Well, I'm excited.
mmmmm space porn.
space porn sounds awesome. Anyone remember the idea for the nuclear heated rod that could penetrate the ice and then release an undersea sub? That sounds vaguely sexual...
Also, Prometheus is a Titan, and he stole fire from the gods and gave it to Mankind, the birth of technology.
"has dune seas like Arrakis (or Tatooine)" <- Fixed!
Anyway, SOLD! When do we leave?
I think Europa's seas would have a better chance of harboring life.
I'm pretty sure that Caliban is a better name than Titan (Its one of Uranus' moons). However, I'm pretty sure Titan is a cooler moon anyway (on a scale of interestingness, not temperature).
Ok forget Mars. Let's go to Titan. Who's driving?
I prefer our moon, for it doesn't smell of farts.
Oh HELL NO, Grabianowski. Europa is the most excellent moon in da ENTIRE solar system!!!
Moon fight!
Stupid question: the image caption says "Image by Steven Hobbs via NASA" - does NASA now employ 3D artists who use Bryce/Vue d'Esprit to produce their spacey imagery?
@Illyr: Agreed - I'm more of a Europa person. Or maybe Enceladus. There might be liquid water lurkin under that ice!
@Belabras: Actually, how has no one made a big blockbuster movie about Titan. It's just begging for one.
@B: When I was reading the article, I started thinking about what a human astronaut would look like there. Even with a spacesuit, we'd be like walking ovens compared to the local environment. And we'd probably move and think far faster than any (possible) indigenous life, thanks to our faster chemical reactions. We'd be "fire demons"... :-)
@MagnusRobotFighter: I guess we could wear suits that are very warm on the outside, like a heated shell. I don't know of any flexable materials that could work in those low temperatures. Nor do I know of any metabolic process that can occur. The chemistry would be so slow on this moon to nearly dismiss the idea of life. What complex organic molecules do we know of that can interact at those temperatures to great amino acids, or their analogs?
@Ed Grabianowski: Oh yeah, it's on!
for all you moon-lovers out there, we're dropping an "illest moon of all time" checklist on you next week. Stay tuned!
That's no moon...
You'd think there'd be more Io fans on this site. It's got volcanoes!
@deckard97: I call shotgun!
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