Can we steal Titan from Saturn ???

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 17:12:10 +0000 (UTC), (Brian Tung)
wrote:

The outer planets too are bathed in methane--I don't believe that's
considered an oddity.

With a large gas planet I can understand how methane might be
replenished from deep inside the planet as there is a huge reservoir
of material and no crust.

On Titan, surface gravity is perhaps half of what it is on Mars,
but the temperature is so low that even methane is too heavy to
escape.

Escape is not the mechanism in question. Specifically it is the
comment that "sunlight destroys methane." There doesn't appear yet to
be a slam dunk answer. Read he

http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/On_titans_doorstep.asp

Regarding the intensity of the sunlight it is certainly true the
sunlight is less intense. However, the Sun has been shining on Titan
for up to 4 billion years. That's a long time to work on methane
destruction.

---
Michael McCulloch

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 11:50:36 -0500, Michael McCulloch wrote:

So what's the continuously replinishing source of methane on Titan?

Flatulant Titanians

Michael McCulloch wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 17:12:10 +0000 (UTC), (Brian Tung)
wrote:

The outer planets too are bathed in methane--I don't believe that's
considered an oddity.

With a large gas planet I can understand how methane might be
replenished from deep inside the planet as there is a huge reservoir
of material and no crust.

The outer planets have hydrogen rich reducing atmospheres. It would be a
big surprise there to find free oxygen or ozone.

On Titan, surface gravity is perhaps half of what it is on Mars,
but the temperature is so low that even methane is too heavy to
escape.

Escape is not the mechanism in question. Specifically it is the
comment that "sunlight destroys methane." There doesn't appear yet to
be a slam dunk answer. Read he

http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/On_titans_doorstep.asp

"Destroys methane" is open to serious misinterpretation. In a reducing
atmosphere it will also reform from other photochemical reactions.

It is surprising to see methane on Mars because that is a red rusty
oxidising enviroment with free peroxides on the surface. Methane on Mars
with hard UV photons quickly finds itself oxidised to CO2 and water.

Regarding the intensity of the sunlight it is certainly true the
sunlight is less intense. However, the Sun has been shining on Titan
for up to 4 billion years. That's a long time to work on methane
destruction.

The methane isn't destroyed the way you seem to imagine. It undergoes
chemical reactions that lead to other alkanes and alkenes. Hence there
will also be some ethane and propane in the atmosphere.

And the UV photons needed for free radical formation will not get too
far into a thick atmosphere like Titan's. It will be interesting to see
what the GCMS and ULV found. It would not surprise me if Titan had an
alkene equivalent to our ozone layer absorbing most hard UV in the upper
atmosphere.

Apart from reaching escape velocity the elements in the atmosphere can
react to form other compounds but they cannot be made to vanish!

Regards,
Martin Brown

I wrote:

Regarding the intensity of the sunlight it is certainly true the
sunlight is less intense. However, the Sun has been shining on Titan
for up to 4 billion years. That's a long time to work on methane
destruction.

In follow-up to my own comment, there has been speculation in Cassini
circles that the rings of Saturn have to be significantly younger than
the solar system.

wild speculation

Perhaps both Saturn's rings and Titan were formed when some largish
rogue Kuiper belt object strayed too close to Saturn.

Titan and Saturn's rings are therefore relatively young objects.

Saturn's rings as they appear now will dissipate in a short time in
astronomical terms and Titan will eventually lose its methane
atmosphere.

/wild speculation

---
Michael McCulloch

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 18:30:34 +0000, Martin Brown
wrote:

The methane isn't destroyed the way you seem to imagine. It undergoes
chemical reactions that lead to other alkanes and alkenes. Hence there
will also be some ethane and propane in the atmosphere.

I realize the methane just doesn't go poof.

Ethane seems rather abundant on the surface, perhaps even forming
liquid lakes or seas -- a signature of methane conversion?

---
Michael McCulloch

"Dan Simper" wrote in message
om...
Titan seems to be pretty impressive, but far too cold.This is not
good.

So I'd suggest to steal this moon from Saturn by attaching some
super-engines to the moon itself OR using a spacecraft with a tractor
beam.

Then we could move the moon between Earth and Mars and use it for
colonization.

Hi,

How could you colinize Titan ?

-180°C, 1500 HPa, nitrogen, methan, ammoniac, permanent twilight and
ammoniac/methan smokes...
Not really the paradise :-((
To extract some hydrocarbons or methan ? Useless because too expensive
We can do it on earth.

Thierry
http://www.astrosurf.com/lombry/titan-brumes.htm


Great idea, isn't it?

In article ,
(Dan Simper) wrote:

Titan seems to be pretty impressive, but far too cold.This is not
good.

So I'd suggest to steal this moon from Saturn by attaching some
super-engines to the moon itself OR using a spacecraft with a tractor
beam.

Then we could move the moon between Earth and Mars and use it for
colonization.

Great idea, isn't it?

Thanks. You've finally convinced me that's it's a complete waste of time
coming to this newsgroup in hopes of reading interesting posts from
people actual interested in Astronomy.

We'd get caught. Where could we hide a thing like that?

"PaulCsouls" wrote in message
...

We'd get caught. Where could we hide a thing like that?

Behind Ganymede?

Best regards,
Bill

do youhave any idea what would happen to Titan if it could be moved to
orbit
around Earth? Think about it!



Dan Simper wrote:

Titan seems to be pretty impressive, but far too cold.This is not
good.

So I'd suggest to steal this moon from Saturn by attaching some
super-engines to the moon itself OR using a spacecraft with a tractor
beam.

Then we could move the moon between Earth and Mars and use it for
colonization.

Great idea, isn't it?