A submarine designed for exploration of the hydrocarbon seas on Titan is being considered by NASA.
Titan is covered in vast oceans of methane and ethane, which intrigue scientists around the world. This giant moon of Saturn is also surrounded by a thick atmosphere, unlike any other in the Solar System. A methane cycle, similar to the water cycle on Earth, drives the chemical through the atmosphere and seas of hydrocarbons.
Kraken Mare, the largest of these seas, is roughly 625 miles in diameter, although astronomers have no way, presently, of measuring the depth of the body. Now, the national space agency wants to send an interplanetary submersible to Kraken Mare, and explore under its surface.
Mission engineers currently envision the vehicle traveling around 1,250 miles during a planned 90-day mission life. Engineers at NASA are comparing Kraken Mare to the Great Lakes in terms of size.
"This craft will autonomously carry out detailed scientific investigations under the surface of Kraken Mare, providing unprecedented knowledge of an extraterrestrial sea and expanding NASA's existing capabilities in planetary exploration," Steven Oleson wrote for NASA.
The Huygens probe traveled to Titan, arriving on its surface in 2005.
The Cassini orbiter, circling around Saturn, has recorded a significant amount of data concerning the methane cycle, as well as the seas, on the satellite. Some of the liquid reservoirs on the moon are as shallow as just a foot deep. Others extend more than 600 feet beneath their surface, the limit that can be measured by radar equipment aboard the craft.
Information will need to be sent to Earth for storage and analysis, but that is impossible from beneath the oceans, using current technology. This will require the vehicle to regularly surface, in order to transmit data.
"When surfaced, as well as communicating with Earth, the vehicle would use a mast-mounted camera to observe the sea state and shoreline landscape, and would record meteorological observations," NASA officials stated in a report that will be delivered to the 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March.
The Titan submarine will not be able to use solar power while under the alien sea, so electricity generated from radioactive pellets will power the vehicle on its mission.
Another challenge facing mission planners are weather and climatic conditions on the surface, and beneath, of Kraken Mare. Temperatures in the ocean fall down to 298 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and powerful tides create potentially dangerous waves.
Alien life may be found in the oceans of Titan, so mission planners are focused on detecting any that may be there. It will take a while, however, for the mission to be launched. Currently, the space agency has the submersible on schedule for launch sometime around the year 2040.
