User:Torindavis7/The Methane Cycle on Titan
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[edit]No moon in our solar system is more comparable to a planet than Titan, the second largest natural satellite in the solar system. This is partially due to the fact that Titan has its own atmosphere. Like water on Earth, Methane can be found in all three states of matter on Titan as it moves through its cycle. The methane cycle on Titan is the most comparable cycle of evaporation and precipitation in our solar system to the water cycle on Earth. There are lakes and even Methane "ice" on the planet. When it rains on Titan, it actually rains Methane, as methane is evaporated from the surface of Titan and forms clouds in the atmosphere.
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[edit]The surface of Titan is at a frigid 94K which is around -300F, so any water that was ever in the atmosphere of Titan was frozen a long time ago. The atmosphere consists almost entirely of Nitrogen with just 1-2% of its atmosphere being Methane. Like on Earth, the higher the elevation, the colder the temperature, but this is only the case on Titan below an altitude of 50 kilometers. Above that, the temperature begins to increase until the atmosphere blends with outer space.
Images of the clouds suggest that the methane that condensates in the atmosphere falls in large quantities like water on Earth, but the acceleration of gravity is so low on Titan that if an observer were to witness the rainfall on the moon's surface, the drops of methane would appear to be falling in slow motion. There may not be any ocean sized bodies of methane, but there is still enough surface area of liquid methane to support a stable cycle of evaporation and precipitation. Through topographical observations of surrounding land, it is estimated that some of these lakes can potentially be thousands of meters deep, which is substantially deeper than any lake on Earth as the deepest lake is Crater Lake which is only just over 500 meters deep.
There are still many mysteries surrounding the Methane Cycle on Titan, such as how the moon has been able to combat photochemical destruction, which theoretically should have diminished the methane in less than a million years. One possible explanation is that the lakes are actually tens of kilometers deep, which would mean there was far more methane on the moon than previously estimated making the photochemical destruction seemingly negligible. However, this is an implausible explanation because there is currently no real evidence of this being accurate. Other explanations include the idea that methane exists in reservoirs deep in the interior of the moon. One consistency in all theories surrounding this topic is that the quantity of methane on this moon must be much greater than our current estimations. Where this addition methane resides is the real question.
Future observations and missions will attempt to look through the thick opaque atmosphere and topographically map more of the surface as well as look closer into the liquid bodies of methane to see if our current theories hold true.
References
[edit]Titan's Methane Cycle -- Introduction, https://atoc.colorado.edu/~tfan/index.files/page0003.htm.
Review Article the Methane Cycle on Titan - Geosci.uchicago.edu. https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~kite/doc/Lunine_and_Atreya_2008.pdf.