Titan is the giant moon of Saturn and the second largest moon in the solar system, only behind Ganymede, which is the giant moon of Jupiter. Titan, if it did not orbit Saturn and was circling the Sun, would be considered a planet, since it is larger than Mercury. Titan is 5149 km and Mercury is 4879 km, but Mercury is much denser, it has a large iron core and in it we would find a large amount of metals and heavy elements, apart from rocks, silicates, etc.
A researcher, Mate Williams, published on June 4 a study, in addition to being long, 107 pages, in summary, he says that Titan analyzes everything it contains, what resources it can provide us and what would be the role of Titan in the future of the solar system in what is now popularly called expansion. Surely what we will see or what our descendants will see in the next century, in this century I think that, by establishing ourselves, we will have enough on Mars, but everything will also depend on how things evolve because with artificial intelligence the evolution of technology, science and everything else will also go much further.
In principle, what could be the role that Titan plays in that future? At the moment, we know that Titan has an atmosphere, in fact, it is the only place outside the Earth where we could walk without a space suit, without a suit that had to maintain a pressure inside, a pressurized suit even on Mars, on Mars it has some atmosphere, but it is very light, you need a space suit, a pressurized suit, but on Titan you could walk without a space suit, yes, you would have to be very wrapped up because it is -170 or so below zero. But there are also other things, mainly that atmosphere is nitrogen plus 2% or 5% methane.
There are lakes, mares, in fact, there are a couple of them, there are a couple of huge lakes that are the size of small mares, like the Black Sea here on Earth, something like that, but the hydrocarbons are methane, decane, etc., there are also dunes of solid hydrocarbons and dunes of plastics, literally, the same plastic that is used for kitchen tappers, the same one, only in powder form, but you take it, melt it and you have a kitchen tapper in titan.
According to this study, it is extremely rich in hydrocarbons, both liquid and solid, also rich in oxygen, accessible by ice, keep in mind that Titan's landscapes, the mountains, the rocks, almost everything is water ice. On Titan, the water ice is basically like here the stones and then the liquids and hydrocarbons will be other elements, but the water ice is abundant, so by breaking the water molecule H2O, you would have oxygen and you would also have hydrogen.
Unlike the Moon, which has hardly any volatiles, that is, it barely has water and has almost no gases, or Mars, which requires energy processes to reduce CO2 and use it and transform it into titanium. The hydrocarbons are already ready to use as fuels and raw materials. You cannot light a match on titan. which we understand as combustion of hydrocarbons, you need oxygen. The thing is that oxygen can be extracted from water ice.
The authors also argue that Titan could be a true core of key resources for long-duration missions to habitat or create habitat in the outer solar system. Apart from hydrocarbons, it has materials to create plastics, rubbers, acrylics, solvents. It has molecules for food, that is, the molecules that would be the basis for creating arable soil. It has nitrogen in abundance, which is the majority element in the atmosphere, which serves to create breathable air for us and for fertilizers. Remember that when we breathe, what we basically put into our lungs is nitrogen. 78% of the air is nitrogen and only 21% is oxygen.
We cannot breathe oxygen directly, although we need it for life. In reality, if we breathed 100% oxygen we would have problems after a couple of days. We can breathe it in emergency situations in hospitals, but for a few hours, be careful, in high concentrations of 90 or 100% it produces oxidative stress that damages the cells of the lungs and the rest of the body. After 48 hours you would start to have serious problems.
The limitation would be that there would be few heavy metals, if there is iron, it would have to be in the core of titan, there would not be any on the surface. These metals would have to be imported from asteroids, for example. This researcher proposes that Titan could be the resource center of the outer solar system for refueling ships at distant bases and also as a food production center, this article is very interesting.
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