What is under the ice on Titan?

Titan

Titan

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is an icy world whose surface is completely obscured by a golden hazy atmosphere. Titan is the second largest moon in our solar system. Only Jupiter's moon Ganymede is larger, by just 2 percent.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov › saturn-moons › titan › in-depth

In Depth | Titan - NASA Solar System Exploration

has clouds, rain, rivers, lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons like methane and ethane. The largest seas are hundreds of feet deep and hundreds of miles wide. Beneath Titan's thick crust of water ice is more liquid—an ocean primarily of water rather than methane.

What is the liquid on Titan not water?

Titan may have volcanic activity as well, but with liquid water “lava” instead of molten rock. Titan's surface is sculpted by flowing methane and ethane, which carves river channels and fills great lakes with liquid natural gas.

Is there an ocean under Titan?

Because Titan's surface is mostly made of water ice, which is abundant in moons of the outer solar system, scientists believe Titan's ocean is likely mostly liquid water.

How deep is the ice on Titan?

“The picture of Titan that we get has an icy, rocky core with a radius of a little over 2,000 kilometers, an ocean somewhere in the range of 225 to 300 kilometers thick and an ice layer that is 200 kilometers thick,” he said.

What is the liquid sea on Titan?

Kraken Mare – a Sea of Liquid Methane on Saturn's Largest Moon, Titan – Estimated to Be 1,000 Feet Deep. Far below the gaseous atmospheric shroud on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, lies Kraken Mare, a sea of liquid methane.

Scientists Believe There Is Life On Titan. What Could It Be?

Is the water on Titan drinkable?

Titan is going to have methane and ethane tainting the ice. And Enceladus and Europa are going to be all kinds of salts and possibly magnesium sulphate, or epsom salts if it's hydrated. So if you drink that water you'll be trotting off to the loo quite soon.

Could Titan have life?

Titan is not a pleasant place for life. It is far too cold for liquid water to exist, and all known forms of life need liquid water. Titan's surface is -180°C.

Is Titan colder than Mercury?

Titan is larger than the planet Mercury. It is also the second largest moon in the Solar System, and the only moon with a dense atmosphere. Just as on Earth, the main gas is nitrogen, but Titan is much colder.

How hot is the core of Titan?

Thermal models tend to indicate that the core will be hot (>1400 K) and losing heat by convection (Grasset et al., 2000, Tobie et al., 2005, Tobie et al., 2006).

Why is Titan uninhabitable?

Gravity. Titan has a surface gravity of 0.138 g, slightly less than the Moon. Managing long-term effects of low gravity on human health would therefore be a significant issue for long-term occupation of Titan, more so than on Mars.

Is there air on Titan?

Rare Air. Titan is the only moon in the solar system known to have a substantial atmosphere, which is mostly nitrogen like Earth's.

Is there oxygen on Titan?

Titan's atmosphere is much colder, however, having a temperature at the surface of 94 K (−290 °F, −179 °C), and it contains no free oxygen.

Why does Titan look yellow?

It shows approximately what Titan would look like to the human eye: a hazy orange globe surrounded by a tenuous, bluish haze. The orange color is due to the hydrocarbon particles which make up Titan's atmospheric haze.

Is Titan smelly?

Titan's dense atmosphere (dark blue) extends hundreds of miles above the world's surface, as seen in this false-color mosiac captured by the Cassini spacecraft. Then there's hydrogen cyanide, which is described as having a bitter almond odor. As you may know from spy flicks, this gas is also incredibly poisonous.

Why is Titan yellow?

Here it is seen that the carbon monoxide glow extends over the dayside as well, producing the yellow layer observed on the left. This is because the two glows, one from methane (green) and carbon monoxide (red) mix together to form yellow in this multi-color composite. Titan's surface is indicated by the circle.

Can we land on Titan?

Built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), launched by NASA, it was part of the Cassini–Huygens mission and became the first spacecraft to land on Titan and the farthest landing from Earth a spacecraft has ever made.

Can you fly on Titan?

Titan's atmosphere is thick—four times as dense as Earth's—and the pull of gravity is only one-seventh what it is here. That combination makes it ideal for generating aerodynamic lift, so flying on Titan takes far less power than a comparable flight on Earth.

Could we live on Titan moon?

Titan is the only other body in our solar system on which humans could possibly live in the future. It's the only possible destination that works similar to Earth and is the only body that has liquid on or near its surface. Titan has a thick atmosphere, stronger than Earth, that would protect us from radiation.

How deep is the ocean on Titan?

Far below the gaseous atmospheric shroud on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, lies Kraken Mare, a sea of liquid methane. Cornell astronomers have estimated that sea to be at least 1,000 feet deep near its center – enough room for a potential robotic submarine to explore.

How long can you survive as a Titan?

Because it is impossible for anyone to surpass the Founder, each person who gained the power of the Titans was fated with the "Curse of Ymir" (ユミルの呪い Yumiru no Noroi^?), which limited their remaining lifespan to only 13 years after first acquiring it.

Has anyone went to Titan?

Almost immediately, Cassini began observing Titan, peering through the haze for the first time. The Huygens probe detached from Cassini and parachuted through Titan's atmosphere, landing on the surface on Jan. 14, 2005—the first landing of a probe in the outer solar system.

How long is a day on Titan?

The day cycle on Titan lasts 15.9 Earth days, which is how long it takes Titan to orbit Saturn.

Is every Titan a human?

All Titans were originally humans of a race of people called the Subjects of Ymir. Ymir Fritz was the first Titan, who became one after merging with a strange spine-like creature in a tree. Subjects of Ymir are all distantly related to her, connecting them to the paths which enables transformation.