Titan Tyler Higbee Physics 1040 sec 11 TR 10 am Solar System Paper

Objects name and discovery Titan which actually means The Giant Titan was named after the ancient race of giants in Greek Mythology. They were the children of Uranus and Gaia, who sought to rule the heavens but were overthrown by the family of Zeus. Titan was discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens he discovered Titan using a plano-convex lens measures 57 millimeters in diameter and has a focal length of 336.7 centimeters. The lens itself is only 3.4 millimeter thick. Christiaan Huygens designed and constructed the telescope together with his brother Constantijn Huygens. (carlkop.home.xs4all.nl) The name Titan comes from a generic term for the children of Ouranos (Uranus) and Gaia in ancient Greek mythology. In the stories, the Titans were the ancestors of the human race. The Titans were known to have devoured the limbs of Dionysus, the son of Zeus. Enraged, Zeus struck the Titans with lightning. (Zeus had intended this child to have dominion over the world.) The lightning burned the Titans to ashes, and from the ashes, mankind was formed. (solarsystem.nasa.gov) Facts and information about Titan Titans mass is approximately Metric: 134,552,523,083,241,000,000,000 kg Scientific Notation 1.3455 x 1023 kg (solarsystem.nasa.gov), diameter is 3,200.6 miles (5,151 km)( seasky.org), roughly 16 days is titans orbital period (solarsystem.nasa.gov), magnetic field researchers don't know how much of its atmosphere is gradually escaping into space. Like Mars, Titan seems to lack a strong intrinsic magnetic field that would protect its atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind. . . Saturn's magnetosphere may help shield Titan from the solar wind. But it also strongly influences the magnetic fields in the moon's atmosphere, making it difficult to discern whether Titan has its own intrinsic field. (newscientist.com),

composition Titan's atmosphere is roughly 90% Nitrogen, and 10% other complex molecules such as methane. The composition of Titan's atmosphere is very similar to the Earth's which is also 80% Nitrogen. Titan's interior is primarily composed of water ice of different phases with mountains of ice exposed at its surface. The drawing shows a possible layout of the different phases of ice in Titan's interior. In this respect, Titan is very much like other icy moons. Deep inside Titan are to be found the more heavier, rocky and metal elements such as silicates and iron. These form the core of Titan.(windows2universe.org), atmosphere Titans atmosphere extends around 370 miles high (about 600 kilometers), which makes it a lot higher than Earths atmosphere. This is also the main reason why Titans gravity is extremely low. Because of this high atmosphere, Titan was thought to be the largest moon in the solar system for a long time. It wasnt until 1980 that Voyager was close enough to discover it was actually smaller than Ganymede.(space.com), surface features Cassini has shown that Titan has few impact craters, meaning that its surface must be relatively young and some combination of processes erases evidence of impacts. This is the case for Earth as well; craters on our planet are eroded by the relentless forces of flowing liquid (water, in Earths case) and wind. These forces are present on Titan as well. Tectonic forces the movement of the ground due to pressures from beneath also appear to be at work in Saturns largest moon. Methane is generally a gas on Earth, but at Titans frigid temperatures (-290 degrees Fahrenheit or -179 degrees Celsius) it is able to exist as a liquid Methane clouds rain onto the surface and this rain forms drainage channels that slice the water ice bedrock of Titan uplands. Liquid methane also pools in standing ponds and giant lakes in the Polar Regions. The Huygens probe, which Cassini carried with it to Saturn, landed in an area that appeared to be a floodplain, complete with rounded cobblestones of rock-hard water ice. The ground around the landing site was soaked in liquid methane. Scientist think Huygens

might have come to rest in an area where rains wash nearby hills clean of dark hydrocarbon particles that drift down from the skies.(saturn.jpl.nasa.gov), the age of Titan is a tricky question for scientist to answer here is the reason why. Titan Saturn's largest moon may look much younger than it really is because its craters are getting erased. Dunes of exotic, hydrocarbon sand are slowly but steadily filling in its craters . . . Most of the Saturnian satellites Titan's siblings have thousands and thousands of craters on their surface. So far on Titan, of the 50 percent of the surface that we've seen in high resolution, we've only found about 60 craters, said Catherine Neish, a Cassini radar team associate based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. It's possible that there are many more craters on Titan, but they are not visible from space because they are so eroded. We typically estimate the age of a planet's surface by counting the number of craters on it (more craters means an older surface). But if processes like stream erosion or drifting sand dunes are filling them in, it's possible that the surface is much older that it appears. This research is the first quantitative estimate of how much the weather on Titan has modified its surface, adds Neish. (nasa.gov) the majority of the information was discovered by Cassini-Huygens mission. Missions to Titan Cassini is currently in the middle of its Solstice mission at Saturn, the second mission for the spacecraft. The probe's primary mission, called Equinox, was aimed at exploring the Saturnian system and ended in June 2008 after four years orbiting the ringed planet. The spacecraft's mission was then extended, with its current Solstice effort expected to last until 2017, when Saturn's solstice takes place hence its name. The focus of the mission, as it relates to Titan, is to find signs of seasonal changes and volcanic activity. Possibilities for life, it is thought that conditions on Titan could become more habitable in the far future. If The Sun

increases its temperature (6 billion years from now) and becomes a red giant star, Titans temperature could increase enough for stable oceans to exist on the surface, according to some models. If this happens, conditions in Titan could be similar to Earths, allowing conditions favorable for some forms of life. (space.com) The Cassini-Huygens mission since 2004, the spacecrafts observations have taken the study of this unique world into a whole new dimension. Cassini has revealed that Titans surface is shaped by rivers and lakes of liquid ethane and methane (the main component of natural gas), which forms clouds and occasionally rains from the sky as water does on Earth. Winds sculpt vast regions of dark, hydrocarbon-rich dunes that girdle the moons equator and low latitudes. Volcanism may occur as well, but with liquid water as the lava. On its journey to Saturn, Cassini carried the European-built Huygens probe. On January 14, 2005, Huygens achieved humankinds first landing on a body in the Outer Solar System when it parachuted through Titans murky skies. Huygens took measurements of atmospheric composition and wind speeds during its decent, along with an incredible series of images showing telltale patterns of erosion by flowing liquid. The probe came to rest on what appeared to be a floodplain, surrounded by rounded cobbles of water ice. As the Cassini Mission progresses, the spacecraft will monitor Titans atmosphere and surface for signs of seasonal change. The spacecrafts radar and camera systems will continue to peer through the haze, expanding our high resolution maps of the surface. Scientists will eagerly await new data that could confirm the presence of a liquid ocean beneath the giant moons surface. (Saturn.jpl.nasa.gov) Another really cool thing about Titan that came from the Cassini Mission Aerosols in this lower haze have been studied using data from the descent of the Huygens probe, which reached the surface in 2005, but their origin remained

unclear. A new study of Titan's upper atmosphere might have solved the puzzle with the detection of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are large carbon-based molecules that form from the aggregation of smaller hydrocarbons. The detected PAHs appear to be the precursors to aerosols, triggering the first reactions that cause these large, solid particles to sink, like snowflakes, into Titan's lower atmosphere. The study is based on data collected with the Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the Cassini Mission. (sci.esa.int) that is right snow on Titan. As for future missions to Titan it seems like other things are on the agenda before Titan which means it will be a long time before anything is sent to Titan, however there was talk about a couple of ideas for future missions to Titan they are AVIATR (Aerial Vehicle for In-situ and Airborne Titan Reconnaissance). The plan, which primarily consists of a 120 kg plane soaring through the natural satellites atmosphere (universtoday.com) Or The Titan Mare Explorer, or TiME, would perform the first direct inspection of an ocean environment beyond Earth by landing in, and floating on, a large methane-ethane sea on the cloudy, complex moon. (jhuapl.edu) to the best of my knowledge there are no past missions for Titan. My suggestions on missions to Titan I think it would be really cool to have AVIATR become a mission and its not like that would be the only mission that could go there could be another probe and/or satellite that went with it. I think it would give us more accurate readings of the atmosphere of Titan; we would be able to see and discover so much more about Titan but also about Saturn as well since Titan is in Saturns magnetosphere. I do not believe that a boat would do good on Titan at least not now any way seeing as Titans surface is -290 F, what if because Titan is so cold we created a spherical shape that could capture images and take samples but had spikes on it so it would make it easier

for it to get around, I think that would be awesome. If we focused on controlling time and studied black holes more I think we could then control time and then scientist would be able to go to Titan without dying on the way there and take samples and study Titan for themselves. I think we should also build a drill send it into space to Titan and then drill into Titan to take samples of the ocean that could possibly be under its entire surface. We do experimentations like on Captain America and see if he can survive, if they work then we send someone into space we could get so much more information not only to do with things in our solar system but things that could be possibly outside of it as well.

A View from Huygens

Etheral Ring

South Polar Vortex

Lakes on Titan

Some rivers on Titan

Titan season change

Vast Ligeia Mare in False Color

Work Cited "Christiaan Huygens discovers Saturn's moon Titan using this telescope lens." Christiaan Huygens' telescope lens. N.p., n.d. Web. . http://carlkop.home.xs4all.nl/huyglens.html Retrieved 4/19/14 "Titan: Overview." Solar System Exploration. N.p., n.d. Web. . http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Sat_Titan Retrieved 3/21/14 "Titan, moon of Saturn - The Solar System on Sea and Sky." Titan, moon of Saturn - The Solar System on Sea and Sky. N.p., n.d. Web. http://www.seasky.org/solar-system/saturn-titan.html Retrieved 3/26/14 "About Saturn & Its Moons." Cassini Solstice Mission. N.p., n.d. Web. .

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/index.cfm?SciencePageID=73 Retrieved 4/11/14 "Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon, Facts and Discovery." Space.com. N.p., n.d. Web. . http://www.space.com/15257-titan-saturn-largest-moon-facts-discovery-sdcmp.html Retrieved 4/16/14 "Saturn magnetizes its moon Titan." - space. N.p., n.d. Web. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14717-saturn-magnetises-its-moontitan.html#.U1XB4Ffp81Y Retrieved 4/21/14 "The Composition of Titan." Composition of Titan, Saturn's Moon. N.p., n.d. Web. . http://www.windows2universe.org/saturn/moons/titan_composition_overview.html

Retrieved 4/21/14 Dunbar, Brian. "Titan Gets a Dune "Makeover"." NASA. NASA, 17 Jan. 2013. Web. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/titan-makeover.html Retrieved 4/21/14 "AVIATR: An Airplane Mission for Titan." Universe Today RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. http://www.universetoday.com/92286/aviatr-an-airplane-mission-for-titan/ Retrieved 4/21/14 "Sailing the Titan Seas: NASA Selects Mission to Saturn's Moon for Discovery Program Development." Sailing the Titan Seas: NASA Selects Mission to Saturn's Moon for Discovery Program Development. N.p., n.d. Web.

http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2011/110506.asp Retrieved 4/21/14 "ESA Science & Technology: Cassini sees precursors to aerosol 'snow' on Titan." ESA Science & Technology: Cassini sees precursors to aerosol 'snow' on Titan. N.p., n.d. Web. . http://sci.esa.int/cassini-huygens/51863-cassini-sees-precursors-to-aerosol-snow-on-titan/ Retrieved 4/4/14 All images from "Titan: Gallery." Solar System Exploration. N.p., n.d. Web. . http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Sat_Titan Retrieved 4/21/14