What's at the bottom of Titan's Methane Seas?

[NASAFanboy]

What do you think is at the bottom of the oceans of Titan?

I do have some speculative ideas of organic compounds, but likely not life.

[xenomorph555]

rocks, sand, silt, basic seafloor.

[DerpenWolf]

A bunch of aliens watching old earth tv shows...

[bartekkru99]

A bunch of aliens watching old earth tv shows...

Noooo, there are huge undersea bases built just after WWII, where the nazists are preparing to invade the Earth once again.

[bartekkru99]

They are now waiting for an order from Hitler's house deep in the Alps in Sweitzerland.

[jwenting]

I thought he was on a base on the moon, and that the Apollo program was cancelled because people were getting too close to finding out?

Or was that on Antarctica, under the ice cap?

Or in the mountains of Equador?

Or in the jungles of Brazil?

Sheesh, it's so hard to keep up with conspiracy theories these days...

[lajoswinkler]

Water ice boulders contaminated with regular rocks, sand, probably bunch of silt, and maybe some organic minerals.

No life at cryogenic temperatures. Maybe microbes, but only deep below the sea bottom, where it's warmer.

We don't know about the transparency of Titan's seas. They seem to absorb near infrared quite strongly, but that doesn't tell us a lot about what we'd see on those shores.

It's liquid methane and ethane, so if pure, it would be transparent, but it's not pure. It's a nonpolar cryogenic solution of organic chemicals made by photolysis in the upper atmosphere.

It might be blood red for all we know. Maybe transparent red, maybe opaque, maybe dichroic? We can't tell.

Edited June 3, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[NFUN]

Water ice boulders contaminated with regular rocks, sand, probably bunch of silt, and maybe some organic minerals.

No life at cryogenic temperatures. Maybe microbes, but only deep below the sea bottom, where it's warmer.

We don't know about the transparency of Titan's seas. They seem to absorb near infrared quite strongly, but that doesn't tell us a lot about what we'd see on those shores.

It's liquid methane and ethane, so if pure, it would be transparent, but it's not pure. It's a nonpolar cryogenic solution of organic chemicals made by photolysis in the upper atmosphere.

It might be blood red for all we know. Maybe transparent red, maybe opaque, maybe dichroic? We can't tell.

It's transparent enough to radio waves, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to design a telescope that could analyse the floor (provided that there is another Saturn mission)

[Sirrobert]

I thought he was on a base on the moon, and that the Apollo program was cancelled because people were getting too close to finding out?

Or was that on Antarctica, under the ice cap?

Or in the mountains of Equador?

Or in the jungles of Brazil?

Sheesh, it's so hard to keep up with conspiracy theories these days...

I don't know about that Jungle, but the rest are true

[WinkAllKerb'']

(joke:) under titan sea you'll find titan that's all (next and sorry)

[phoenix_ca]

I don't see why this is tagged "Sci Fi". It doesn't take wild speculation to take a stab at what might be on Titan. It's not like we can prove any hypothesis right now but still, we can make some educated guesses.

[MC.STEEL]

this is a little off topic but what about any useful materials on titan?

Methane is a decent NTR propellant,we could scoop it up from the higher atmosphere.(or does it sink to the bottom)?

[KerikBalm]

a layer of ethane ice maybe?

I doubt there is anything alive on Titan, its really cold there,

While there are some chemical signs of something a bit interesting, nothing that screams "biology" like observing earth from space would

[Kryten]

It's transparent enough to radio waves, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to design a telescope that could analyse the floor (provided that there is another Saturn mission)

We already have a telescope capable of analysing the seafloor; we only have to wait for the sea to dry up first. Thankfully, 'rainfall' on Titan is infrequent and the lakes shallow enough for such dried lake basins to be pretty common; they show deposits of solid hydrocarbon evapourites, but under that just pretty much normal Titan soil.

[phoenix_ca]

this is a little off topic but what about any useful materials on titan?

Methane is a decent NTR propellant,we could scoop it up from the higher atmosphere.(or does it sink to the bottom)?

Titan actually has rain. Methane and ethane rain so it's friggin cold but rain none-the-less.

Who knows. Maybe you could nab some of those hydrocarbons. I doubt it'd make any sense other than for in-situ use though. Maybe use in and around Saturn.

Edited June 5, 2014 by phoenix_ca

[lajoswinkler]

this is a little off topic but what about any useful materials on titan?

Methane is a decent NTR propellant,we could scoop it up from the higher atmosphere.(or does it sink to the bottom)?

Gaseous mixtures are well mixed because they're gas, but Titan's atmosphere is almost completely nitrogen.

[Skyler4856]

Ice, the jaeger's basement, etc..