How much of Titan is water?
The density of Titan is consistent with a body that is about 60% rock and 40% water.
Will Titan become habitable?
Thus, Titan could potentially harbor environments with conditions suitable for life—meaning both life as we know it (in the subsurface ocean) and life as we don’t know it (in the hydrocarbon liquid on the surface).
Why is Titan habitable?
Titan is far colder than Earth, but of all the places in the solar system, Titan is the only place besides Earth known to have liquids in the form of rivers, lakes and seas on its surface. Its thick atmosphere is chemically active and rich in carbon compounds.
Is there liquid water on the surface of Titan?
Direct evidence was not obtained until 1995 when data from the Hubble Space Telescope and other observations had already suggested the existence of liquid methane on Titan, either in disconnected pockets or on the scale of satellite-wide oceans, similar to water on Earth. The Cassini mission affirmed the former hypothesis, although not immediately.
What is Titan’s surface made of?
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. On Earth, tides result from the gravitational attraction of the moon and sun pulling on our surface oceans.
What kind of ocean is there on Titan?
Titan’s Underground Ocean. A liquid water ocean, “salted” with ammonia, could produce buoyant ammonia-water liquids that bubble up through the crust and liberate methane from the ice. Such an ocean could serve also as a deep reservoir for storing methane. For more information about Cassini’s mission to Saturn,…
What kind of atmosphere does Titan have on it?
Titan’s Atmosphere Revealed by New NASA Observation. 05.13.05. Titan’s atmospheric winds, temperature and mixing have been revealed by new observations from the Cassini spacecraft. The thick atmosphere of Saturn’s giant moon is rich in organic compounds, whose chemistry may be similar to that which occurred on Earth before the emergence of life.