Does Titan have drinkable water?

Does Titan have drinkable water?

There’s just no water. Butthere are plenty of hydrocarbons. Methane and ethane are the simplesthydrocarbon molecules. By themselves, they are of limited biological interest. It has been speculated that life could exist in the liquid methane and ethane that form rivers and lakes on Titan’s surface, just as organisms on Earth live in water. Such hypothetical creatures would take in H2 in place of O2, react it with acetylene instead of glucose, and produce methane instead of carbon dioxide. Titan appears to have lakes of liquid ethane or liquid methane on its surface, as well as rivers and seas, which some scientific models suggest could support hypothetical non-water-based life. This week, scientists reported in Nature the definitive evidence of the presence of lakes filled with liquid methane on Saturn’s moon Titan. Scientists have known that Titan’s hydrologic cycle works similarly to Earth’s — with one major difference. Instead of water evaporating from seas, forming clouds and rain, Titan does it all with methane and ethane. We tend to think of these hydrocarbons as a gas on Earth, unless they’re pressurized in a tank.

Does Titan have flowing water?

It is the sole other place in the solar system known to have an earthlike cycle of liquids raining from clouds, flowing across its surface, filling lakes and seas, and evaporating back into the sky (akin to Earth’s water cycle). Titan is also thought to have a subsurface ocean of water. At –180 degrees Celsius (–292 degrees F), any water there would freeze instantly. Instead, Titan’s lakes are probably filled with liquid methane and maybe some ethane. These substances are known as hydrocarbons. The density of Titan is consistent with a body that is about 60% rock and 40% water. 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. New research provides evidence of rainfall on the north pole of Titan, the largest of Saturn’s moons, shown here. The rainfall would be the first indication of the start of a summer season in the moon’s northern hemisphere, according to the researchers. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

What liquid is on Titan?

These northern hemisphere lakes are the strongest evidence yet that Titan’s surface and atmosphere have an active hydrological cycle, though with a condensable liquid other than water. In this cycle, lakes are filled through methane rainfall or intersect with a subsurface layer saturated with liquid methane. And since its atmosphere is thought to be analogous to Earth’s in the distant past, proponents of terraforming emphasize that Titan’s atmosphere could be converted in much the same way. Beyond that, there are several reasons why Titan is a good candidate. The lake disappeared during Titan’s summer, when the amount of energy being transferred into the lake was higher than at other times, so the lake must have evaporated not froze. With a surface temperature dipping 290 degrees F below zero, Titan is far too cold for liquid water. Instead, researchers believe the fluid that sculpts Titan is an unknown mixture of methane, ethane, and other hard-to-freeze hydrocarbons. Sunlight can trigger exotic chemical reactions high up in Titan’s atmosphere, generating short-lived compounds such as ethane, acetylene, hydrogen cyanide and cyanoacetylene. These molecules absorb heat from Titan and radiate it out into outer space in the form of infrared rays, cooling it down.

Does Titan have tides?

This varying pull causes bulges on Titan, also called solid tides. Near the middle of Titan’s orbit around Saturn (quadrature), there is still sufficient pull to cause a gravitational distortion, or deviation from a spherical shape. Tides on Titan raised by Saturn’s gravity can be as high as 30 feet (10 meters). A liquid layer between the external, deformable shell and a solid mantle would enable Titan to bulge and compress as it orbits Saturn. 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. Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, measures 3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers, across and is larger than the planet Mercury. Saturn’s largest moon Titan—larger than the planet Mercury—is one weird, deranged place. But it could also be a kind of “Utopia” for astrobiologists. Other Titan facts Titan’s diameter is 50 percent larger than that of Earth’s moon. Titan is larger than the planet Mercury but is half the mass of the planet. Titan’s mass is composed mainly of water in the form of ice and rocky material. Titan has no magnetic field. A day on Titan is the same as the time it takes for the moon to orbit around Saturn, about 15 days, 22 hours, and 41 minutes. The same side of Titan always faces toward Saturn, in much the same way as the same face of our Moon always points toward the Earth.

Which water Cannot freeze?

As a result, you can cool very pure water well below zero degrees Celsius without it freezing. Water in this condition is called supercooled. At standard pressure, pure water can be supercooled to as low as about -40 degrees Celsius. Supercooled water is kept from freezing only by the lack of nucleation centers. Ocean water freezes just like freshwater, but at lower temperatures. Fresh water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit but seawater freezes at about 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit , because of the salt in it. When seawater freezes, however, the ice contains very little salt because only the water part freezes.