Titan inhospitable to life after all?

[Kyng]

https://news.westernu.ca/2024/02/titan-non-habitable/

A study led by Western astrobiologist Catherine Neish shows the subsurface ocean of Titan – the largest moon of Saturn – is most likely a non-habitable environment, meaning any hope of finding life in the icy world is dead in the water.

This discovery means it is far less likely that space scientists and astronauts will ever find life in the outer solar system, home to the four ‘giant’ planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

“Unfortunately, we will now need to be a little less optimistic when searching for extraterrestrial lifeforms within our own Solar System,” said Neish, an Earth sciences professor. “The scientific community has been very excited about finding life in the icy worlds of the outer solar system, and this finding suggests that it may be less likely than we previously assumed.”

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So basically, the explanation is that the necessary organic compounds would come from comets - but then they'd have to get through Titan's thick icy outer layer. But there haven't been enough comets for the required quantities of organic molecules to get into Titan's sub-surface ocean.

I'd love for her to be proven wrong (and I'm sure she'd love to be proven wrong as well) - but unfortunately, there are more requirements for life (or at least, life as we know it) than just water!

[slooroo]

But could Titan be transformed into a place to live by humans? Obviously not right now but it still doesn't sound impossible.

[Kyng]

But could Titan be transformed into a place to live by humans? Obviously not right now but it still doesn't sound impossible.

Well, nothing's impossible: @ SpookyZalost always liked to make posts about the kinds of hypothetical mega-projects that would allow for life on other planets (or, in this case, moons). If and when he comes back, I would be interested to know his thoughts on how we might be able to live on Titan one day.

But once we know what it takes, I guess the biggest question would be: is it worth it? After all, even if fill up our own planet (or ruin it to the point where it's no longer hospitable), there are plenty of closer places we could move to instead (with Mars being the most obvious candidate, but I've even heard proposals for colonising Venus, as crazy as that sounds ).

[SpookyZalost]

But could Titan be transformed into a place to live by humans? Obviously not right now but it still doesn't sound impossible.

Well, nothing's impossible: @ SpookyZalost always liked to make posts about the kinds of hypothetical mega-projects that would allow for life on other planets (or, in this case, moons). If and when he comes back, I would be interested to know his thoughts on how we might be able to live on Titan one day.

But once we know what it takes, I guess the biggest question would be: is it worth it? After all, even if fill up our own planet (or ruin it to the point where it's no longer hospitable), there are plenty of closer places we could move to instead (with Mars being the most obvious candidate, but I've even heard proposals for colonising Venus, as crazy as that sounds ).

Ask and ye shall receive. 

Okay so to start with Titan has one big advantage of mars, and that is its atmosphere is thick.  Thick enough you won't need a pressure suit to live there.  Only other places like that in this star system are venus and earth.  and venus has the nasty issue of being both a planet sized acid bath with a crust that's constantly resurfacing itself like an over zealous asfault paver.  And having a dense atmosphere that is just under 92 times that of earth's making it a place of acidic, vocalnic, broiling death with a surface temperature of 740 Kelvin.  It's certainly not the tropical resort we once imagined over a century ago.

Titan on the other hand has an atmospheric pressure similar to earth's.  maybe a little less.  and it's major hazard is that the atmosphere is both unbreathable and really really cold.  But if you don't mind wearing an insulated thermal suit and a breathing mask you could actually live quite comfortably on titan as is.  It's a hazy place with an atmosphere rich in the sorta stuff we burn on gas stoves and water heaters.  namely hydrocarbons like methane and ethane.  It's oxygen poor but hydrogen rich, and contains a sub surface ocean beneath all the liquid methane lakes that acts as a water/ice mantle which is kept that way by Saturn's gravity.  Meaning there's a good chance there's life there.  Combine it's earth like atmosphere being thick relative to it's mass and you have a pretty cool place to do some extreme sports in.  Infact if it's one of the few places one of those flying machines that have people flapping like birds would actually work.

So if you don't mind an airlock not unlike what you'd find in antarctica.  You could quite easily colonize titan with a bit of work.  far more easily than say Venus.  or Europa, or ganymede, or calisto, or triton, or hell, pluto.  at least on par if not a little bit easier than mars.

Speaking of.  DO NOT DRINK THE WATER ON MARS.  I'll go into this on another post but TLDR, there's something in the soil that messes with the pituitary gland and stunts the growth of earth-based organisms.

[Kyng]

But could Titan be transformed into a place to live by humans? Obviously not right now but it still doesn't sound impossible.

Well, nothing's impossible: @ SpookyZalost always liked to make posts about the kinds of hypothetical mega-projects that would allow for life on other planets (or, in this case, moons). If and when he comes back, I would be interested to know his thoughts on how we might be able to live on Titan one day.

But once we know what it takes, I guess the biggest question would be: is it worth it? After all, even if fill up our own planet (or ruin it to the point where it's no longer hospitable), there are plenty of closer places we could move to instead (with Mars being the most obvious candidate, but I've even heard proposals for colonising Venus, as crazy as that sounds ).

Ask and ye shall receive. 

Okay so to start with Titan has one big advantage of mars, and that is its atmosphere is thick.  Thick enough you won't need a pressure suit to live there.  Only other places like that in this star system are venus and earth.  and venus has the nasty issue of being both a planet sized acid bath with a crust that's constantly resurfacing itself like an over zealous asfault paver.  And having a dense atmosphere that is just under 92 times that of earth's making it a place of acidic, vocalnic, broiling death with a surface temperature of 740 Kelvin.  It's certainly not the tropical resort we once imagined over a century ago.

Titan on the other hand has an atmospheric pressure similar to earth's.  maybe a little less.  and it's major hazard is that the atmosphere is both unbreathable and really really cold.  But if you don't mind wearing an insulated thermal suit and a breathing mask you could actually live quite comfortably on titan as is.  It's a hazy place with an atmosphere rich in the sorta stuff we burn on gas stoves and water heaters.  namely hydrocarbons like methane and ethane.  It's oxygen poor but hydrogen rich, and contains a sub surface ocean beneath all the liquid methane lakes that acts as a water/ice mantle which is kept that way by Saturn's gravity.  Meaning there's a good chance there's life there.  Combine it's earth like atmosphere being thick relative to it's mass and you have a pretty cool place to do some extreme sports in.  Infact if it's one of the few places one of those flying machines that have people flapping like birds would actually work.

So if you don't mind an airlock not unlike what you'd find in antarctica.  You could quite easily colonize titan with a bit of work.  far more easily than say Venus.  or Europa, or ganymede, or calisto, or triton, or hell, pluto.  at least on par if not a little bit easier than mars.

Speaking of.  DO NOT DRINK THE WATER ON MARS.  I'll go into this on another post but TLDR, there's something in the soil that messes with the pituitary gland and stunts the growth of earth-based organisms.

Wow, nice explanation .

Sounds like it is a lot of work - but yes, easier than most other places. At the very least, we won't need to give it an artificial atmosphere.

One of the main things we'd need is oxygen... how easy would it be to bring enough of it to support life?

[Moonface]

So what you're saying is we need to go to Saturn and bring climate change along with us so that the ice melts?

[SpookyZalost]

Well, nothing's impossible: @ SpookyZalost always liked to make posts about the kinds of hypothetical mega-projects that would allow for life on other planets (or, in this case, moons). If and when he comes back, I would be interested to know his thoughts on how we might be able to live on Titan one day.

But once we know what it takes, I guess the biggest question would be: is it worth it? After all, even if fill up our own planet (or ruin it to the point where it's no longer hospitable), there are plenty of closer places we could move to instead (with Mars being the most obvious candidate, but I've even heard proposals for colonising Venus, as crazy as that sounds ).

Ask and ye shall receive. 

Okay so to start with Titan has one big advantage of mars, and that is its atmosphere is thick.  Thick enough you won't need a pressure suit to live there.  Only other places like that in this star system are venus and earth.  and venus has the nasty issue of being both a planet sized acid bath with a crust that's constantly resurfacing itself like an over zealous asfault paver.  And having a dense atmosphere that is just under 92 times that of earth's making it a place of acidic, vocalnic, broiling death with a surface temperature of 740 Kelvin.  It's certainly not the tropical resort we once imagined over a century ago.

Titan on the other hand has an atmospheric pressure similar to earth's.  maybe a little less.  and it's major hazard is that the atmosphere is both unbreathable and really really cold.  But if you don't mind wearing an insulated thermal suit and a breathing mask you could actually live quite comfortably on titan as is.  It's a hazy place with an atmosphere rich in the sorta stuff we burn on gas stoves and water heaters.  namely hydrocarbons like methane and ethane.  It's oxygen poor but hydrogen rich, and contains a sub surface ocean beneath all the liquid methane lakes that acts as a water/ice mantle which is kept that way by Saturn's gravity.  Meaning there's a good chance there's life there.  Combine it's earth like atmosphere being thick relative to it's mass and you have a pretty cool place to do some extreme sports in.  Infact if it's one of the few places one of those flying machines that have people flapping like birds would actually work.

So if you don't mind an airlock not unlike what you'd find in antarctica.  You could quite easily colonize titan with a bit of work.  far more easily than say Venus.  or Europa, or ganymede, or calisto, or triton, or hell, pluto.  at least on par if not a little bit easier than mars.

Speaking of.  DO NOT DRINK THE WATER ON MARS.  I'll go into this on another post but TLDR, there's something in the soil that messes with the pituitary gland and stunts the growth of earth-based organisms.

Wow, nice explanation .

Sounds like it is a lot of work - but yes, easier than most other places. At the very least, we won't need to give it an artificial atmosphere.

One of the main things we'd need is oxygen... how easy would it be to bring enough of it to support life?

For titan?  you could just use electrolysis and gather it from the icewater mantle.  the hard part actually would be power.  you might be able to do something like geothermal but more than likely you'd want something nuclear all the way out there.  solar isn't going to cut it.  maybe wind.  I don't know a lot about the wind on titan.