Sunshine on Titan

[Gian]

Is it known why Titan happens to have at thick atmosphere when none of the other moons in the solar system do? And from the surface of Titan, is there ever a break in the clouds (doesn't look like it) so that Titanians (I know there arent any but maybe one day) can see Saturn and the sunshine from the surafce?

Cheerz

GIAN🙂

Edited March 22 by Gian

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, Gian said:

Is it known why Titan happens to have at thick atmosphere when none of the other moons in the solar system do? And from the surface of Titan, is there ever a break in the clouds (doesn't look like it) so that Titanians (I know there arent any but maybe one day) can see Saturn and the sunshine from the surafce?

Cheerz

GIAN🙂

Gian, the intensity of sunlight on the Surface of Titan is about 0.1% of what we see on the surface of the Earth. 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)

Quote

Titan's surface temperature is about 94 K (−179.2 °C). At this temperature, water ice has an extremely low vapor pressure, so the little water vapor present appears limited to the stratosphere.^[67] Titan receives about 1% as much sunlight as Earth.^[68] Before sunlight reaches the surface, about 90% has been absorbed by the thick atmosphere, leaving only 0.1% of the amount of light Earth receives.^[69]

As for why... You ask a question that has crossed my mind many times, I have read that the reason why Jupiter's giant moons do not have atmospheres has to do with Jupiter being being very hot in it's youth and this prevented the Galilean moons from having atmospheres. I am not really sure if this is accurate or not. 

Edited March 22 by Moontanman

[swansont]

It’s big and massive, cold, and the distance from the sun means a reduced solar wind as compared to inner planets and moons. It’s also somewhat protected by Saturn’s magnetic field

[Gian]

MOONTANMAN

O.1% of the sun's light??? So essentially it's about as light on the surface as a starry night here on Earth. I think Prof John Zarnecki (of Huygens Probe fame) said it would be like a deeply overcast day here on Earth, which given the distance I was surprised at. 

I think it's probable cloud cover is total on Titan, so future space tourists won't be able to see Saturn hanging in the sky.

I'll see if I get in touch with one of the Huygens scientists to find out then report back here.

Cheerz

GIAN🙂xxx

 

Edited March 22 by Gian

[Janus]

18 minutes ago, Gian said:

MOONTANMAN

O.1% of the sun's light??? So essentially it's about as light on the surface as a starry night here on Earth. I think Prof John Zarnecki (of Huygens Probe fame) said it would be like a deeply overcast day here on Earth, which given the distance I was surprised at. 

I think it's probable cloud cover is total on Titan, so future space tourists won't be able to see Saturn hanging in the sky.

I'll see if I get in touch with one of the Huygens scientists to find out then report back here.

Cheerz

GIAN🙂xxx

 

Direct sunlight ~100,000 lux

0.1% of that 100 lux, which is equivalent to an heavily overcast day, and brighter than that of the hallway lighting of a typical office building. A moonless clear night is ~0.002 lux

[Moontanman]

20 hours ago, Janus said:

Direct sunlight ~100,000 lux

0.1% of that 100 lux, which is equivalent to an heavily overcast day, and brighter than that of the hallway lighting of a typical office building. A moonless clear night is ~0.002 lux

An interesting tidbit here is that Sunlight on Earth is much more intense that we need to see but that the human eye is a very poor judge of light intensity. An interesting experiment is to look at a 40 watt fluorescent light bulb inside and outside in the sun.  Indoors the 40 watt bulb will be almost too bright to directly look at comfortably but outdoors the 40 watt bulb will all but vanish in the sunlight. Plants need significantly less than full sunlight to grow as well, it depends on the species of plants but Earthy plants (underwater plankton) can grow and reproduce at 1% of Earth's surface light intensity. From my own hobby of growing coral I've been made aware of how important light intensity is and how bad the human eye is at judging light intensity. many under water ecological niches are defined by light intensity.     

[Gian]

Dr Ralph Lorenz who was one of the scientists on the Cassini Huygens project which explored Titan tells me

 

"The Sun at noon on Titan = 0.1% of noon sun on Earth but this is still 500x brighter than full moonlight, you’d see fine, as proven by the Huygens images"

 

He also adds that yes cloud cover is total so explorers wouldn't be able to see the night sky or Saturn from the Titanian surface.

 

Cheerz

 

GIAN🙂XXX

 

 

JANUS and MOONTANMAN

That's interesting about light levels, particularly regarding explorers growing stuff on Titan.

Obviously it's far too cold to grow stuff on the surface but I wonder if there'd be enough light to grow crops in giant greenhouses.

Plus there's shed loads of water ice on Titan so sources of water and oxygen are already there, although I guess farmers would have to take a fair amount of compost with them to get started lol.

And once oxygen has been harvested, I guess the plentiful supplies of methane could be used to generate heat and more light.

Cheerz

GIAN🙂

Edited March 23 by Gian

[Moontanman]

18 hours ago, Gian said:

Dr Ralph Lorenz who was one of the scientists on the Cassini Huygens project which explored Titan tells me

 

"The Sun at noon on Titan = 0.1% of noon sun on Earth but this is still 500x brighter than full moonlight, you’d see fine, as proven by the Huygens images"

 

He also adds that yes cloud cover is total so explorers wouldn't be able to see the night sky or Saturn from the Titanian surface.

 

Cheerz

 

GIAN🙂XXX

 

 

JANUS and MOONTANMAN

That's interesting about light levels, particularly regarding explorers growing stuff on Titan.

Obviously it's far too cold to grow stuff on the surface but I wonder if there'd be enough light to grow crops in giant greenhouses.

Plus there's shed loads of water ice on Titan so sources of water and oxygen are already there, although I guess farmers would have to take a fair amount of compost with them to get started lol.

And once oxygen has been harvested, I guess the plentiful supplies of methane could be used to generate heat and more light.

Cheerz

GIAN🙂

I doubt that plants we grow for food would grow well enough under 0.1% Earth sunlight to feed us but nuclear power could be used for supplemental lighting.  

[Gian]

MOONTANMAN

Dr Lorenz says the light levels are like a deeply overcast day here on Earth. But yes there is obviously insufficient light to grow crops. He also says there's never any break in the clouds.

But I thought that with shed loads of methane readily available as fuel,  plus water ice, explorers could generate breathable air and electricity to create heat and UV lights to grow stuff in big greenhouses.

Wikipedia says

"Titan is primarily composed of ice and rocky material, which is likely differentiated into a rocky core surrounded by various layers of ice, including a crust of ice and a subsurface layer of ammonia-rich liquid water."

Sounds like there's everything human beings need

Cheerz

GIAN🙂XXX

[Moontanman]

3 minutes ago, Gian said:

MOONTANMAN

Dr Lorenz says the light levels are like a deeply overcast day here on Earth. But yes there is obviously insufficient light to grow crops. He also says there's never any break in the clouds.

But I thought that with shed loads of methane readily available as fuel,  plus water ice, explorers could generate breathable air and electricity to create heat and UV lights to grow stuff in big greenhouses.

Wikipedia says

"Titan is primarily composed of ice and rocky material, which is likely differentiated into a rocky core surrounded by various layers of ice, including a crust of ice and a subsurface layer of ammonia-rich liquid water."

Sounds like there's everything human beings need

Cheerz

GIAN🙂XXX

You would have to have an energy source of some kind, nuclear is almost certainly necessary. Controlled fusion would be ideal and of course will be possible in 20 years. 

[Gian]

4 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

You would have to have an energy source of some kind, nuclear is almost certainly necessary. Controlled fusion would be ideal and of course will be possible in 20 years. 

Well obviously fusion would be best, but meanwhile they could set up electrolysis machines to separate the oxygen and hydrogen and thus - combined with nitrogen - make air. Then set up methane generators in a big barn.

Plus, I assume that at those temperatures foodstuffs would be preserved almost indefinitely.

If the scientists had packed a stack of hamburgers and bread rolls in the Huygens Probe, I bet when explorers finally get to Titan in eg 50y time and find the Probe, the first thing they could do is have a Big Mac as the stuff is still fresh

Edited April 1 by Gian

[Moontanman]

1 minute ago, Gian said:

Well obviously fusion would be best, but meanwhile they could set up electrolysis machines to separate the oxygen and hydrogen and thus - combined with nitrogen - make air. Then set up methane generators in a big barn.

Plus, I assume that at those temperatures foodstuffs would be preserved almost indefinitely.

If the scientists had packed a stack of hamburgers and bread rolls in the Huygens Probe, I bet when explorers finally get to Titan in eg 50y time and find the Probe, the first thing they could do is have a Big Mac as the stuff is still fresh

Yet is still requires energy to make the electricity to run "electrolysis machines" where do you get the energy?

[Gian]

4 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Yet is still requires energy to make the electricity to run "electrolysis machines" where do you get the energy?

You'd have to take either nuclear or some other source of potential energy with you (batteries?) plus some oxygen and petrol to get started I guess

GIAN🙂XXX

Edited April 1 by Gian

[Moontanman]

2 minutes ago, Gian said:

You'd have to take either nuclear or some other source of potential energy with you (batteries?) plus some oxygen and petrol to get started I guess

GIAN🙂XXX

Nuclear is the only real option here for a long term stay on Titan. Titan does have advantages, having an atmosphere is a big plus for many reasons, lots of ice, methane, ammonia, nitrogen, I can even imagine deposits of alkaline metals like sodium and potassium being present in the ice crust... but Titan is a low energy environment (wind power maybe?) we will have to bring our energy with us. 

[Gian]

Moontanman

I guess it may be advantageous to send unmanned spacecraft with all this equipment accompanied by robots and ai which could get it all set up and functioning before the human explorers arrive?

GIAN🙂

Edited April 1 by Gian

[Moontanman]

5 minutes ago, Gian said:

Moontanman

I guess it may be advantageous to send unmanned spacecraft with all this equipment accompanied by robots and ai which could get it all set up and functioning before the human explorers arrive?

GIAN🙂

I would think that by the time we get around to a base on Titan a robotic setup of the base would be SOP but I see no reason why it would be necessary.  

[Gian]

MOONTANMAN

Well I'm just thinking that if the explorers have to start from scratch the equipment they've brought with them may malfunction, or there's other difficulties they don't know about. 

But I guess it's axiomatic that they'd have to take enough oxygen with them for the return trip in case they can't harvest any on Titan.

I guess the most difficult and expensive thing about space travel remains getting out of the Earth's gravity well, and the greater the mass the more expensive it all works out. 

I just wonder if sending equipment separately and unmanned would reduce costs. Plus for the explorers to know the tech was already up and running, already generating power and growing foodstuffs would be reassuring.

But it may be better to undertake the whole project all at once. 

GIAN🙂XXX

[Moontanman]

10 minutes ago, Gian said:

MOONTANMAN

Well I'm just thinking that if the explorers have to start from scratch the equipment they've brought with them may malfunction, or there's other difficulties they don't know about. 

But I guess it's axiomatic that they'd have to take enough oxygen with them for the return trip in case they can't harvest any on Titan.

I guess the most difficult and expensive thing about space travel remains getting out of the Earth's gravity well, and the greater the mass the more expensive it all works out. 

I just wonder if sending equipment separately and unmanned would reduce costs. Plus for the explorers to know the tech was already up and running, already generating power and growing foodstuffs would be reassuring.

But it may be better to undertake the whole project all at once. 

GIAN🙂XXX

I would have to assume that by the time we do seek to build a base on Titan we will be harvesting materials for our ships and bases from objects already in space as asteroids or comets so hauling materials out of a gravity well will slowly become irrelevant as obtaining materials in space become dominant. But the idea of having bots come in and build before we get there is a good idea for sure. 

[Gian]

MOONTANMAN

Thanks!

GIAN🙂XXX

 

[Airbrush]

 

Why does Titan have such a dense atmosphere?   Google says:

Abundant Nitrogen: Titan’s lower atmosphere is primarily composed of nitrogen (about 94.2%), which contributes significantly to its density ¹. Nitrogen molecules are relatively heavy and tend to remain close to the moon’s surface due to its gravity.

Methane and Hydrogen: Alongside nitrogen, Titan’s atmosphere contains methane (approximately 5.65%) and a trace amount of hydrogen (about 0.099%) ¹. The extreme cold temperatures on Titan allow gaseous methane to exist in the atmosphere while liquid methane pools on the surface ¹.

Retaining Atmosphere: Titan’s gravity is strong enough to retain its atmosphere more effectively compared to other moons in our solar system ². Unlike our Moon, which lacks a substantial atmosphere, Titan’s colder conditions help slow down gas molecules, making it easier for the moon to hold onto its gases ³.

Heat Liberation: Over time, heat from infalling objects and the decay of radioactive elements within Titan’s rocks liberated much of the trapped gas, creating the dense nitrogen-rich atmosphere we observe today ⁴.

[Moontanman]

11 hours ago, Airbrush said:

 

Why does Titan have such a dense atmosphere?   Google says:

Abundant Nitrogen: Titan’s lower atmosphere is primarily composed of nitrogen (about 94.2%), which contributes significantly to its density ¹. Nitrogen molecules are relatively heavy and tend to remain close to the moon’s surface due to its gravity.

Methane and Hydrogen: Alongside nitrogen, Titan’s atmosphere contains methane (approximately 5.65%) and a trace amount of hydrogen (about 0.099%) ¹. The extreme cold temperatures on Titan allow gaseous methane to exist in the atmosphere while liquid methane pools on the surface ¹.

Retaining Atmosphere: Titan’s gravity is strong enough to retain its atmosphere more effectively compared to other moons in our solar system ². Unlike our Moon, which lacks a substantial atmosphere, Titan’s colder conditions help slow down gas molecules, making it easier for the moon to hold onto its gases ³.

Heat Liberation: Over time, heat from infalling objects and the decay of radioactive elements within Titan’s rocks liberated much of the trapped gas, creating the dense nitrogen-rich atmosphere we observe today ⁴.

Any idea why Jupiter's major moons do not have atmospheres? They are well within the similar gravitational pull of Titan. 

[Airbrush]

On 4/2/2024 at 7:19 AM, Moontanman said:

Any idea why Jupiter's major moons do not have atmospheres? They are well within the similar gravitational pull of Titan. 

I asked your question of ChatGPT and here is what it said:

"Planetary history, including factors like past impacts, volcanic activity, and geological processes, can affect a moon's ability to maintain an atmosphere. Titan has a complex geological history, including processes like cryovolcanism, which can release gases and contribute to atmospheric density. Jupiter's moons have different geological histories and processes that have led to their current atmospheric compositions and densities.  While Titan's dense atmosphere is influenced by factors like its distance from the Sun, composition, and geological processes, Jupiter's moons have different characteristics that result in thinner atmospheres. Each moon's unique combination of factors determines its atmospheric properties."

[Moontanman]

10 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

I asked your question of ChatGPT and here is what it said:

"Planetary history, including factors like past impacts, volcanic activity, and geological processes, can affect a moon's ability to maintain an atmosphere. Titan has a complex geological history, including processes like cryovolcanism, which can release gases and contribute to atmospheric density. Jupiter's moons have different geological histories and processes that have led to their current atmospheric compositions and densities.  While Titan's dense atmosphere is influenced by factors like its distance from the Sun, composition, and geological processes, Jupiter's moons have different characteristics that result in thinner atmospheres. Each moon's unique combination of factors determines its atmospheric properties."

While accurate its not very satisfying, I still have questions but I suspect that answering my questions would take a book like manuscript at least. I struggle with figuring out what is fundamentally different about the Saturn Titan system and the Jupiter Galilean moons system. Gravity is similar on all five moons, composition is similar, temps are similar, cryovolcanism is similar. I wonder if there is a book about this concept or even papers going into detail about this, it would be a very interesting read.  I do have my own speculations about this but they are just speculations. 

Edited April 9 by Moontanman

[Airbrush]

On 4/8/2024 at 6:03 PM, Moontanman said:

While accurate its not very satisfying, I still have questions but I suspect that answering my questions would take a book like manuscript at least. I struggle with figuring out what is fundamentally different about the Saturn Titan system and the Jupiter Galilean moons system. Gravity is similar on all five moons, composition is similar, temps are similar, cryovolcanism is similar. I wonder if there is a book about this concept or even papers going into detail about this, it would be a very interesting read.  I do have my own speculations about this but they are just speculations. 

Every planet and moon in our solar system is strange in its' own unique way.  Every world, even every asteroid, is VERY different from all the others.  Titan is a freak, like all the others.  What about Jupiter's powerful magnetic field is 34 times as strong as Saturn's?

"Jupiter's magnetic field is...about 20,000 times stronger than Earth's."

"Saturn's...is...about 580 times stronger than Earth's...."

-ChatGPT

Edited April 13 by Airbrush

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, Airbrush said:

Every planet and moon in our solar system is strange in its' own unique way.  Every world, even every asteroid, is VERY different from all the others.  Titan is a freak, like all the others.  What about Jupiter's powerful magnetic field is 34 times as strong as Saturn's?

"Jupiter's magnetic field is...about 20,000 times stronger than Earth's."

"Saturn's...is...about 580 times stronger than Earth's...."

-ChatGPT

Now that is a significant difference! If it were accurate, 

https://www.britannica.com/place/Saturn-planet/The-magnetic-field-and-magnetosphere

Quote

At Saturn’s one-bar “surface” level, the maximum polar field is 0.8 gauss (north) and 0.7 gauss (south), very similar to Earth’s polar surface field, while the equatorial field is 0.2 gauss, compared with 0.3 gauss at Earth’s surface. Jupiter’s equatorial field, at 4.3 gauss, is more than 20 times stronger than Saturn’s. 

 

Edited April 13 by Moontanman