Titan`s climate so similar to earth , can we colonise this moon like planet ?

Lakes on Titan. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

Even though there are lakes and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan, the rains that feed them may come few and far between. According to data gathered by NASA’s Cassini mission, parts of Titan might not see rain for more than 1,000 years.

And according to Dr. Ralph Lorenz, from the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL), a new mission to Titan is exactly what’s needed to get to the bottom of this.

Rain on Titan?! It sounds bizarre, but scientists have observed a complex cycle of liquid on Titan, with lakes and rivers, clouds, and the rain that must feed them. But on Titan, where surface temperatures plunge to -179C, we’re not talking about water. The whole hydrological cycle runs with methane: methane lakes, methane rivers, and methane rain.

And it appears that the rain on Titan can be extreme, with deep river channels that must have had enormous flows for brief periods. But this rain must also be rare. In all of its observations of Titan, Cassini only spotted two instances of darkened regions that might have indicated rainfall.

In a recent talk at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), Dr. Lorenz presented his estimates of the Titan rainfall, and the need for a new mission that could study it.

Titan Mare Explorer. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Titan Mare Explorer (TiME)

Dr. Lorenz is one of the scientists involved with the proposed Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) mission; one of three shortlisted missions that might be turned into NASA Discovery missions.

If selected, TiME would travel to the Saturn system, descend through Titan’s thick atmosphere, and land in Ligeia Mara, a large lake on the surface of the moon. It would search for rainstorms on the descent – an extremely unlikely event – and then watch the skies for evidence of rainfall. It would be able to “hear” rain falling directly onto it, and in the liquid around it. TiME would also be equipped with instruments that would let it see cloud formation, rain shafts, and even methane rainbows.

Assuming the rain shafts are 10 km wide, and would be observable at distances of 20 km, the lander should be able to detect rainstorms within a 1200 km² area. According to Dr. Lorenz:

We might expect a 50% chance for a lander to be rained on directly in a 2500hr mission, but that its camera could observe nearby rainfall an expected ~5 times.

Once in 1,000 years?

While the weather system on Titan is similar to Earth, it probably has some significant differences, which Cassini observations have hinted at. Although there were possible storms seen in 2004, there was a huge gap until 2010. After the “storm”, the surface of Titan was changed with a large darkened area that could indicate saturation of liquid on the surface. These ponds seemed to dry up in future observations.

Estimates indicate that regions near Titan’s poles see rainfall for 10-100 hours every Titan year (30 Earth years). But the drier parts of the moon might not see more than a single rainfall every 1,000 years.

Ice volcanoes 

Based on new data collected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, may have active ice volcanoes. The researchers analyzed surface brightness data captured by Cassini and discovered changes that would indicate active cryovolcanism on Titan.

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Anezina Solomonidou, from the Observatoire de Paris and National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, presented the research at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2013. Interestingly, the active ice volcanoes on Titan could make certain areas of the moon more suitable for life. “These results have important implications for Titan’s potential to support life as these cryovolcanic areas might contain environments that could harbor conditions favorable for life,” said Solomonidou in a statement.

The study analyzed three locations near Titan’s equator, Tui Regio, Hotei Regio and Sotra Patera, for potential ice volcano activity, comparing those locations with similar volcanic regions found on Earth, examining features such as calderas, a feature caused by the collapse of land after an eruption and volcanic craters.

According to the researchers, Titan has many features that can be found on Earth, including dunes, lakes, weathering erosion as well as clouds and rain of liquid methane, instead of water. Titan’s surface is covered by a thick layer of ice, but underneath that ice there is an ocean of liquid water, although it may contain ammonia. Solomindo says Titan needs to have a mechanism to replenish methane.

Methane is important in the search for life as it is one of the four components, along with water vapor, carbon dioxide and oxygen, which astronomers look for to determine a planet’s, or moon’s, potential to sustain life, reports Universe Today. There are organisms on Earth, such as methanotrophic bacteria, that convert methane into energy. Unlike a volcano eruption on Earth, a cryovolcano, or ice volcano, eruption ejects methane.

Researchers, using Cassini’s onboard Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), discovered brightness changes for two regions, Tui Regio and Sotra Patera. Tui Regio decreased in brightness between 2005 and 2009, but Sotra Patera had an increase in brightness between 2005 and 2006. Sotra Patera, formerly known as Sotra Facula, has been previously pegged as an ice volcano by NASA in 2010 as the area features two peaks, potential volcanic craters and flows. “When we look at our new 3-D map of Sotra Facula on Titan, we are struck by its resemblance to volcanoes like Mt. Etna in Italy, Laki in Iceland and even some small volcanic cones and flows near my hometown of Flagstaff,” said Randolph Kirk, from the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center in Arizona, in a statement.

The only known ice volcano is found on Neptune’s moon Triton. The cryovolcano was observed byVoyager 2 in 1989.

What is increasing the methane on titan volcano or life Read this article on Universe Today.