What If You Swam in Titan's Lakes for 5 Seconds?

Titan. The most majestic of Saturn's many moons. And the most promising for life, too. It's got a beautiful view and liquid lakes on its surface. The only problem is those lakes aren't filled with water. They're filled with liquid methane. Your mission is to take a five-second dip in one of them. Of course, you’d have to land on Titan first. buckle up for the most epic adventure of your lifetime. Titan is far. Even at its closest to Earth, this icy moon is still 1.2 billion km (746 million mi) away from us. You'd be looking at roughly seven years of travel alone in a spaceship. You'd need lots of provisions and a super advanced life support system.

You know, it would be good if you made it to Titan and didn't freeze or suffocate somewhere in the middle of the Solar System. that's not going to happen to you. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Seeing Saturn up close is amazing. Definitely the most spectacular of all the ringed planets in the Solar System. But, enough sightseeing. It's time to make your way to your destination. Titan is unique in many ways. For one, it's larger than our Moon. It's even bigger than Mercury, the smallest planet in our cosmic neighborhood. It's the only moon that has a thick atmosphere.

It's also the only one that's covered in liquid lakes, rivers and seas. And sometimes it rains here, too. Descending on Titan would take you about two and a half hours. And you couldn't just land anywhere. Titan is covered in lakes. unless you wanted to dip your entire spacecraft in liquid methane, you'd better choose your landing site carefully. Let's try this again. now that you've properly landed on Titan, let's go explore this icy world. This moon of Saturn might look a lot like Venus, but it's not as hellishly hot. Titan is one of the most hospitable places in the Solar System. its gravity is only 14% of Earth's, but its thicker atmosphere makes it possible for you to walk there, even without a spacesuit.

You'd need the spacesuit to keep you warm. Titan is very far away from the Sun, so it doesn't receive as much warmth as we do here on Earth. You'd be taking a brisk stroll at a chilling -180 °C (-290 °F). you wouldn't exactly be strolling. More like bouncing around. thanks to Titan's weaker gravity, you'd feel a lot lighter and could jump higher and move with less effort. Titan's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, very similar to Earth's. But you still couldn't breathe on this moon because, that's where the similarity ends. While 95% of the air here is nitrogen, the remaining 5% is methane. You need an oxygen tank to survive even 5 seconds on this world. Yeah, it's not just the lakes that have methane in them.

There's plenty of methane in Titan's clouds. And sometimes it even rains methane. But this rain isn't anything like you've seen on Earth. It would be more like rain in slow motion, thanks to Titan's lower gravity and thick atmosphere. On Earth, raindrops fall at about 9 m/s (30 ft/s). But on Titan, their speed is only about 1.6 m/s (5 ft/s). That's six times slower. It would be pretty cool to walk in the rain here. But hey, you didn't come here for a walk in the rain. You came to take a dip in Titan's lakes. your mission is to take a swim in one of these methane pools? Let us break it down for you. First off, this isn’t no spa day.

It's like diving into a freezer. Titan got this super chilly vibe going on. At these temperatures, water is harder than concrete. But methane and ethane? They're like, it's cold, but like, we can still chill in liquid form. they gather up in these cool little pools. let's say you're wearing that fancy spacesuit. Good news, you won't freeze instantly into an astronaut popsicle. Bad news, that suit's going to float. If for some wild reason, you decided to take the plunge without the suit. Lights out. the intense cold would freeze you down to your bone, you couldn't move a muscle.

And then the lack of oxygen would get you. But five seconds with the spacesuit on? We’ll definitely survive! Probably. Let's test it. Seems like someone's spacesuit can't withstand the cold. Someone needs an upgrade. It’s so refreshing out here. It appears that the cold temperature cracked his suit, and methane reacted with the oxygen tank inside it. He should have read about this in the mission brief. Anyway, the mission is a success. The only thing left is to figure out how to get home. maybe instead of returning to Earth, we could set up shop on Titan.