Harshit Gupta
School: Delhi Public School
City: Bangalore
Techer: Sameer Sachdeva
"I think Titan would be the best topic (really hard choice). It definitely is an abnormal world and might harness life.
Beside Earth, Titan is the only other body to have stable liquids on its surface. However, it isn’t water but rather ethane and methane. There are also chances of a subsurface ocean of water mixed with salts and ammonia . In this ocean there could be life similar to that of the Earth and life forms different from those in the hydrocarbons. Titan also has a really dense atmosphere.
It is so cold over there that water-ice plays the role of stone. Titan also has a unique liquid cycle like Earth’s water cycle. Its average temperature is -179 degrees Celsius. There must be some process which replenishes the methane as it is being split by the sun’s ultraviolet rays. The ‘sand’ on Titan’s surface are actually the compounds that settled on the surface.
Its atmosphere is actually so dense walking on it won’t need a space suit, only an oxygen mask and protection from the seriously low temperatures. Titan also might have volcanic activity but instead of molten rock the ‘lava’ could be liquid water.
“Titan is an active planet”, some say.
Agreed.
Sandstorms are another common thing between Titan, Earth and Mars. Due to its gravity being roughly the same as the Moon, Titan’s atmosphere goes much higher than that of the Earth. 231 Its mass is 1.8 times of the Moon. Titan like Earth also has seasons like the Earth but each lasts 7 Earth years approximately.
Titan could have formed from Oort Cloud a sphere of billions of icy bodies. This huge moon was discovered by Christiaan Huygens on March 25, 1655. Titan’s density is 1.882 g/cm cubed. The first spacecraft to fly past it was Pioneer 11. It gave Cassini a goodbye by plummeting it towards Saturn."
