PMC wrote:
I love the description Blob. I too sort of imagine a world where waxy hydrocarbon slush squishes underfoot and falls from the dark sky...
One wonders what Titan would be like if it were orbiting our own Earth, being that much closer to the sun would it have spawned life of any kind? The building blocks are there on Titan, but it's way too cold for life to exist there.
Titan would likely not survive such proximity to the sun.
First of all, its gravitational pull* is just enough to hold on to the atmosphere it has at -180C. The RMS speed of the molecules at that temperature is sufficiently low to prevent the gases simply escaping.
Even then, a small fraction of the atmosphere does escape, since statistically you'll always get some molecules moving fast enough and even at Saturn's distance there is still some solar wind scavenging. Luckily for Titan, the gas tends not to escape the gravitational pull of Saturn, producing an equilibrium effect where Titan is able to recapture most of this loss.
If Titan orbited the earth, the increased temperature would push a significant quantity of the atmospheric gases RMS speeds above escape velocity. Even without the solar wind to make the effect worse, the atmosphere would most likely quickly diminish.
*the gravitational pull actually depends largely on this last part...
Lastly, whilst not fully confirmed, the moon seems to be made of a rock-ice mixture that is common for bodies in the outer solar system. If it were heated to terrestrial temperatures, the ice would simply melt. Stripped of it's atmosphere, the water would evaporate pretty quickly leaving you with just the rock content.
OTOH, if Titan turns out to be mostly rock, its mass and subsequent surface gravity will be a lot higher and the above 'worst case' scenario alleviated somewhat.
When the sun begins its helium burning phase, the solar output will increase dramatically. Titan will be warmed up significantly and it will still have the benefit of Saturn's gravitational trap to help keep its atmosphere. After aeons of 'slow chemistry', it could become quite active.
