[extropy-chat] Mars and Titan

Jeff Davis jrd1415 at yahoo.com
Sat Jun 5 20:49:53 UTC 2004


>From "Titan Facts"

http://people.msoe.edu/~tritt/sf/titan.html

Atmospheric pressure near Titan's surface is about 1.6
bars, 60 percent greater than Earth's. The atmosphere
is mostly nitrogen, also the major constituent of
Earth's atmosphere. 

The surface temperature appears to be about 95 Kelvins
(-289 degrees Fahrenheit), only 4 Kelvins above the
triple-point temperature of methane. Methane, however,
appears to be below its saturation pressure near
Titan's surface; rivers and lakes of methane probably
don't exist, in spite of the tantalizing analogy to
water on Earth. On the other hand, scientists believe
lakes of ethane exist, and methane is probably
dissolved in the ethane. Titan's methane, through
continuing photochemistry, is converted to ethane,
acetylene, ethylene, and (when combined with nitrogen)
hydrogen cyanide. The last is an especially important
molecule; it is a building block of amino acids.
However, Titan's low temperature may inhibit more
complex organic chemistry. 




	
		
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