Science

Humans to LIVE on Saturn’s moon? NASA engineer claims Titan could be 'awesome' to live on


Janelle Wellons wrote on the ‘ask me anything’ board for NASA engineers, scientists, pilots and project managers that Titan would be “an awesome place to live”. The engineer worked on the Cassini probe, which took seven years to teach the Saturn system for its study of Titan and yielded much knowledge about the satellite. Titan has 14 percent of Earth’s gravity, so it would feel quite different to our home planet, but its thick atmosphere would make life easier than the thin air of Mars or the Moon.

Ms Wellons said: “Titan is the largest moon of Saturn, larger than the planet Mercury even, so I think we could settle with plenty room.

“It is so dense that we could actually attach wings to our arms and fly on this moon.

Titan is the only place besides earth known to have liquids in the form of lakes and seas on its surface.

“These liquids are made of methane, but armed with the right kind of protective gear, one could theoretically be able to swim without harm.”

She added: “I don’t know, it just seems like an awesome place to live.”

These properties of Titan explain why Ms Wellons believes Titan is habitable for humans, but there are also some less appealing aspects to it.

For example Titan, being far from the Sun, has an average temperature of -179C.

It is also takes years to get there, during which time astronauts would have to tolerate radioactive waves from the Sun, microgravity and plenty of stress.

Despite this, Titan seems to be a popular future destination among scientists, with astrophysicist Brian Cox also feeling optimistic about the possibilities.

He once told Stephen Fry on an episode of BBC’s Quite Interesting that one could “shatter an Ewok” in one of Titan’s lakes of super-cold liquid methane.

Previously, NASA scientist Amanda Hendrix said Titan could be the host of alien life.

Dr Hendrix, co-lead of the NASA Roadmaps to Oceans World Group, said: “I think it is possible there could be some simple life forms in some of the ocean worlds in our outer solar system.”



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