Titan Inhabitable?

[us.2u]

Well Rasori anything is possible but probabilities more refined & dare I say it down to Earth!

[Ophiolite]

I'd speculate that Jovian moons might also have developable geothermal power........

 

So I would not anticipate having to park an iron asteroid in orbit to support metalurgy. But you might be right.........

 

My notion of a practical "space elevator" requires that the planet or moon rotate more than I fancy Titan does........

 

bioforming is a good concept.........

1. I'm not sure how to run the math' date=' but I suspect anything large enough to be spherical would have a sufficient temperature gradient to exploit for 'geothermal' power. [Though in this instance it would be titanothermal power.']

2. No, I think you are right. I just like the notion of moving asteroids around the system, a skill we shall acquire when learning to deflect potential Earth colliders.

3. I'd overlooked the tidal lock. I'm not certain what effect that would have. Again, I just like space elevators and look for opportunities to introduce them.

4. I may have picked up the flavour of the concept from Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, where he talks of ecopoesis. [Anyone who has an interest in Mars, or loves science fiction, or is intrigued by terraforming, must read Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars]

 

1.Ophiolite' date=' if the organisms are small they need less heat to heat themselves. A giant organism would need to heat up a WHOLE lot of area, and in areas with temperatures like Titan, that heat is extremely hard to come by

2. Kinda off-topic, but why is it that we say carbon-based and (possiby) silicon-based lifeforms are the only possibilities? Why is it not possibly possible that there's methane-based lifeforms or hydrogen-based lifeforms?[/quote']

1.Partly I was fishing, to see if anyone would produce good arguments for, or against, gigantism. Also, although they need more total heat, their heat loss is less. Heat generation rises as the cube, whereas heat loss rises as the square. [Which is why a very large elephant would cook itself!]

2. Life is a complex biochemical process, and so requires complex and varied chemicals to mediate the process. Carbon has an unparalleled ability to form such compounds. Of particular importance is the bond strength:it is high enough to make many stable compounds, yet not so high as to require prohibitively large amounts of energy to break [a prerequisite for forming new compounds.] Compare the ease with which carbon dioxide is disassembled in photosynthesis with the billion year stability of silicon dioxide (quartz).

[[Tycho?]]

I don't know anything about the speculations of silicon-based lifeforms' date=' so you may be right. Even so, I was just sticking up for Myth Guy

 

Kinda off-topic, but why is it that we say carbon-based and (possiby) silicon-based lifeforms are the only possibilities? Why is it not possibly possible that there's methane-based lifeforms or hydrogen-based lifeforms?[/quote']

 

Well carbon and to a lesser extent silicon are able to form long continous molecular chains. This allows for as much diversity as you want, as there are always more possibilities for new molecules which can go towards helping a life form. Silicon can also do this, but not nearly as well as carbon.

 

Methane already has carbon in it, so a methane based life-form would already be carbon based. As for hydrogen, it is unable to form chains on its own. Such a life form would be totally different then anything we know, we probably woudn't be able to regognize it as life anyway, and nobody knows how such a being would live.

[Rasori]

Methane and Hydrogen were just what came to mind

But thanks, Ophiolite and Tycho, for explaining that to me.

[Ophiolite]

Of course if we take a small liberty with the phrase life based upon ... , then we can say that life on Earth may also be based on silicon. Cairns-Smith, a chemist at the University of Glasgow, my alma mater, proposed in 1966 that the first replicating systems were crystals, specifically clay minerals. These have several interesting characteristics, including complexity, residual surface charges, inter-layer spaces, and high reactivity. Cairns-Smith envisaged organic molecules adhering to the clay minerals, which acted as templates for the complex molecular entities that were thus created.

A simple review of the concept, with further links, may be found here.

http://originoflife.net/crystals/

 

Those of a philosophical bent may wish to contemplate that if the theory is true and if AI life based on the silicon chip replaces man, that life will have moved full circle: from silicon to carbon to silicon.

[us.2u]

Of the satellites of Saturn the largest is Titan which moves around the planet at a distance of 760,000 miles (from the centre of Saturn). It has a period of 15 days 22.5 hrs; It's orbit is circular, & lies only half a degree in inclination from the plane of the rings. Titan is comparable in size to the planet Mercury,making it the largest satellite in our solar system. Titan is more than twice as dense as water & has an escape velocity of 1.7 miles per second.Titan has an atmosphere giving it a dark blue sky. Lines & bands have been studied on Titan due to methane. However Titan could not support life as we know it. The temperature will always be -240 farenheit. But Titan could become our main outpost delving deep into the depths of our solar system.

[us.2u]

Here's a thought I wonder if there could be a DNA structure in our solar system that's crossed with silicon & carbon giving us a carbon-silicon mixture or carsillicate compound just a thought