Saturn's Moon: Titan

Today I landed on Titan. It took a while to navigate my way through the dense atmospheric gases and at first I thought I would have to abort the mission and that I would never land, but I finally did and it is amazing. I may have to stay here more than 1 day! Titan looks eerily like Earth, with rock formations and liquid-filled lakes; the problem is that those lakes aren’t filled with H2O – they’re filled with the flammable liquid hydrocarbon. Luckily, I knew this from the findings of the Cassini-Huygens mission that was conducted in 2004 and I brought along supplies that didn’t need explosions or fire to get them running or that had a solid enough material surrounding the burning that heat wouldn’t set any of the lakes or gas on fire. I came to do research, so I brought with me a lot of test tubes, beakers, containers, etc. to put all my samples of hydrocarbon, rock, soil and all the other materials that I can find on this moon so that I can bring them back to NASA for testing. But I also thought I’d have a little fun while I was here, so I brought along a specially made diving suit that can withstand liquid hydrocarbon while keeping the pressure and gases of earth there for me (like a regular astronaut’s suit) and keeping me warm (the temperature is -179°C) so that I can go diving in the lakes on titan and see if I can find anything interesting in the liquid and at the bottom of the lakes. Who knows, I may even find some life in the form of plants, animals or bacteria! I also brought along a boat and a jet ski with the engine contained in a substance that won’t let the heat escape so that I can cruise along the lake, collecting samples, without having to worry about exploding the whole moon.

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I’ve been trekking around Titan in my special suit, and I found some amazing rock formations along with some massive craters! I’m guessing that these craters were made by asteroids hitting the moon in its early years, but boy are they huge. I also found some dunes (like the ones on Earth) made up of some dark material – I think it’s dark-coloured sand, but I don’t really know so I’ve taken some samples to be tested back at NASA. After looking around for a while, I also found some rocks that have signs of erosion, which meant there were moving liquids at some point on this moon. I also found, with the help of previous findings about Titan that the atmosphere protects Titan from the harmful UV rays coming off of Saturn and its surrounding planets. I have hypothesised, from these two things and other things that I’ve found on Titan, that it is possible that there’s life on this planet since there are perfect conditions for some form of life to be living here, but before I can conclude that, I’ll have to find some concrete evidence while on Titan or I’ll have to wait before NASA can analyse what I’m bringing back.

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My day on Titan has been great and I hope that I can come back soon and also that NASA can find some cool things out about Titan and its possibilities for life from the samples I’m bringing back with me. And now I will leave the moon as fast as I can before I accidentally make it explode and so that I can get through the atmosphere before it gets dark. Bye Titan!