Titan in Earth's Orbit and Earth in Titan's Orbit

[Guest johnharlin]

Can anyone make a scientific estimate as to what would happen to Titan if it was in Earth's orbit and what would happen to Earth if it was in Titan's orbit?

 

Since Titan has tremendous amounts of frozen water locked up in its surface and rocks that would be released as air if Titan were warmed up to Earth's temperature, could Titan become habitable?

[5614]

which would move?

 

like, titan orbiting earth where the earth is now, as titan would be closer to the sun it'd warm up, simiarly, if the earth moved to where titan was, earth would get colder, also jupiter would play an effect.

 

would titan replace our moon or would be have 2 moons?

 

it'd effect the tidal patterns.

 

Since Titan has tremendous amounts of frozen water locked up in its surface and rocks

i didnt know titan had water on its surface... it has a temperature of -180 degrees centigrade, there is liquid methane on the surface of titan, not water.

[Molotov]

Titan would probably lose most of its atmosphere due to its lower mass.

[TimeTraveler]

i didnt know titan had water on its surface... it has a temperature of -180 degrees centigrade, there is liquid methane on the surface of titan, not water.

 

From what I understand there is a lot of water on Titan's surface, frozen under and inside the outer layers of it's crust.

[Martin]

Titan would probably lose most of its atmosphere due to its lower mass.

 

I agree

 

it would be bad news for Titan because at the higher temperature it could not hold water vapor or nitrogen or methane

 

so it would lose all its atmosphere, and then a substantial part of its mass that is now solid would melt and evaporate and start to percolate off into space (because of the relatively weak gravity)

 

so Titan in a warmer location would loose much of its now-solid mass

 

one would not want to be anywhere near it while that was happening

 

(a humongous comet?)

[Ophiolite]

I tried to find something on the internal structure of Titan, but found nothing quantitative. We know the density averages out to 1.88 g/cc. A reasonable model that will yield this is as follows:

Core: Iron-nickel 100 km radius

Mantle: Rock 1800 km radius

'Crust': Ice 2575 km radius

That means 65% of the volume of Titan is ice, primarily water ice. So, if we move Titan to Earth's orbit we wind up after a 'short' time with a water planet, with a global ocean 650 kms deep. After a 'longer' time, as Titan fails to retain its volatiles, we get a rocky moon half the diameter of our own.