Titan = Earth II

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Since Titan has a warm core & magnetic field it makes a good candidate for a terraformable celestial body.

The chemistry is already more Earth like than Venus'es.

The trick is to nudge it free from its orbit around Saturn and have it slide into an Earth type orbit.

While i don't think we have the tech ready for this now, I think this is a very plausable scenario in the not too distant future.

We might have to wait some time [Centuries, Millenia, longer?] for bacteria to transform it to a completely Earth like planet.
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Even assuming it was possible to move Titan into orbit around Earth, this would be an extremely bad idea. Titan's gravity would change Earth dramatically. For example, tides are caused by the moon, and Titan is bigger than the moon by quite a bit, so if Titan were also in orbit, tides would be huge. I'm pretty sure there would be climate changes as well, though I don't know the specifics.

If we had the technology to move a moon, I think we would have the technology to be able to travel to that moon relatively easily, and I don't see why we would need to move it. It's an interesting idea though, one that I've never come across, except in some science fiction, and even then, not quite in the way you describe.

imagine one slight tiny miscalculation and we have this huge ball flying toward us ready for impact



but good idea tho

He said Eathlike orbit, not orbit around Earth ...
Read before commenting guys. Deny Ignorance ya know.

Anyways, knocking the moon out of orbit from Saturn might just cause it to loose its warm core and magnetic field. In the solar system, star system, galaxy, universe, all bodies interact with eachother one way or another, and they are how they are as a result of the influences of all other bodies.

Taking this moon out of Saturns orbit is propably the thing that will destroy all of its properties.

Originally posted by pao
imagine one slight tiny miscalculation and we have this huge ball flying toward us ready for impact

but good idea tho

It would be extremely difficult to move Titan from it's orbit. I can't imagine angines agle to do it. Maybe antimatter or some kind of gravity manipulation. Maybe it would be easier to start termonuclear fusion/reaction in Jupiter's core - create second sun..

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Think of it as a long term project.

A orbiting body in space is held by a delicate balance of gravity and inertia.
With extremely good calculations you could very slightly push it out in its orbit.
If the calculations were done exactly right it would fly off from Saturn and fall into an Earth circumference orbit.

The initial nudge and a few correction nudges would each be huge, but for the gain of an entire ready to terraform planet it sounds like a reasonable investment of effort to me.

It might be best if it were on the far side of the Sun in orbit. Reducing any extraneous effects on Earth.

Bacteria could be used, as they did on the early Earth, to change the anoxic atmosphere to an aerobic atmosphere.
drawback: that took almost 3 billion years here on Earth.
but with intentional seeding a and bio-engineered organisms that could probably be accelerated.

Titan could be our 'spare' Earth for use if/after we screw this one up totally.

footnote: Because the mass of Saturn is so much greater, the tidal friction heat is negligible as opposed to here on Earth where our Moon is 12 % of our mass.
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If it has a warm core as you say, why do we even have to move it? We could just live underground or whatnot. I guess the whole concept of day and night would be pretty skewed on a moon, but those bacteria can be pretty darn adaptive.

Anyways, knocking the moon out of orbit from Saturn might just cause it to loose its warm core and magnetic field.

Yup. One of the reasons Titan is the way it is is because it is constantly bathed in Saturn's intense magnetic field. Take that away, no more warm core, and no more field.

it will be cool living in Titan . Can u imagine looking out of the windows and see a huge planet (saturn) outside? Wooo that is awesome ... however i think it will be very very cool there.....because the sun is a huge distance away.

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Titan has an atmosphere that is NH3 & CH4, Ammonia and Methane, as the Early Earth did.

It is about twice the mass of Earth's moon.

It has a larger diameter than mercury (but less than half the mass).

It has a molten core and therefore a magnetic field, which is what protects a planet's atmosphere.

It will have more gravity than the Moon and and an organic (bio-engineerable) atmosphere, unlike Venus with an atmosphere of sulfuric acid and CO2.

If we can engineer bacteria that will do the job of pumping out lots of oxygen as they did here on Earth only at a very accelerated rate it can be made Very Earth-like, right on the surface.

Earth II, overstates the case, but Titan could be very livable with a breathable atmosphere on its surface.

Currently the surface temperature of Titan is about minus 178 C or minus 289 F, which is the reason for moving it to a warmer orbit.

It would probably have to have a much longer year than the Earth so the orbit of it would have to be just inside or just outside of Earth's orbit. It is light enough that that should have virtually no effect on the Earth's orbit.

Venus might be terraformable but the entire surface of the planet would have to be replaced or covered with organics and a viable atmosphere added, probably imported. Right now the pressure on the surface is like being 900 meters deep in our ocean and the temperatures are around 450 C and the atmosphere is CO2 and sulfuric acid. [can you say 'hostile'?] Venus on the plus side has a warm core/magnetic field to protect an atmosphere once you get one worth having there.

Mars has no magnetic field left to protect its atmosphere, which is why most of it is now gone. On the plus side you don't have to deal with deep ocean pressure levels, tremendous heat and sulfuric acid like you would with Venus.
Getting the Core re-moltenized for a magnetic field sounds like an engineering project that wouldn't be do-able for millenia if ever.

If it were possible to re-moltenize a celestial bodies core, that could be tried with the Earth's Moon. It is smaller than Mars so it wouldn't be as massive a project. Atmospheric gases and additional water would have to be imported, perhaps from Saturn, Jupiter or one of their moons. It also has a great location.

Of all the planets Titan is the most ready to terraform.

footnote to apc, I don't think the magnetic field of Saturn keeps Titan's core warm. The gravitational tidal friction might contribute to it though.

[edit on 13-4-2005 by slank]