Source: NASA/JPL/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho
If you are not a masochist, like Gordon Ramsay’s 6.62 million followers on Twitter, there is one way you could get away from his stinging criticisms, put your name down for NASA’s newest planned project. All aboard The Saturn Submarine.
Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, offers scientists a real chance at finding extra-terrestrials in our Solar system as it has plenty of seas and lakes that could be teaming with life. The prospect seems too tantalizing for NASA to ignore as researchers have already begun simulating the conditions of Titan’s seas and lakes so that they can learn how to build a craft that will navigate through the murky deep of Saturn’s largest moon.
The Saturn Submarine project, which has been penciled in for a 2032 launch date offers a long list of challenges that will need to be overcome by the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Although Titan’s lakes offer the promise of life, they are very different from lakes found here on earth. Not least because the lakes are not made of water, but rather ethane and methane chilled to between 25 and 150 degrees Celsius below zero. Overcoming these challenges is not the end of it either, any heat or nitrogen created by the submarine could affect the craft’s ability to take accurate readings.
This seems like a real head scratcher then with plenty of hurdles between here and the finish line, 886 million miles away. With the possibility of discovering aliens in our own backyard, however, you can bet that it will only be a matter of time before The Saturn Submarine, man’s first ever craft to navigate a liquid surface off-world, splashes down into the freezing oceans of Titan. All aboard.
