Future space colonies? Maybe we should look at Saturn and Titan other than Mars.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft, Saturn and Titan, Saturn's largest satellites. Cassini Model: Brian KuMancik, Christian Lopez. NASA/California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Move to Maya &；; Kevin M Jill The updated materials of NASA and elon musk's Space Exploration Technology Company are dedicated to sending astronauts to Mars, and even establishing a colony on this red planet one day-but it would be better if their attention shifted to other places? A new paper in the Journal of Astrobiology and Outreach suggests that humans should establish colonies on Titan, a sour orange satellite of Saturn, which is compared to the early earth and may have signs of "life we don't know".

"In many ways, Saturn's largest moon Titan is one of our favorite worlds. NASA said on its website, "The latest one has been found. "Because of its thick atmosphere and rich organic chemicals, Titan is similar to the frozen version of the Earth billions of years ago, when life had not yet begun to deliver oxygen to our atmosphere.

Obviously, Titan may have microbes-or at least chemicals similar to pre-life-but it is not the Earth. The moon is always covered with orange clouds, and its atmosphere is unfriendly to human beings. But Titan's gravity can walk (65438+ 04% of the earth). Because of its thick clouds, its surface radiation is less than that of Mars, and it provides all kinds of energy from which tourists can generate energy.

Just as Amanda Hendricks, the author of the newspaper, co-authored a book before her, "Beyond the Earth: Our Road to a New Home is on these planets. Titan has a lot of hydrocarbon deposits, usually related to oil and natural gas. According to NASA's Cassini probe, Titan's liquid hydrocarbon content is hundreds of times that of all known oil and gas reserves on earth.

Simulation of Titan's ground view. (Kevin M.Gill) pointed out that if an independent combustion source is used to help avoid the fact that there is no oxygen in the lunar atmosphere, people on Titan can get energy from these compounds. But Hendricks' new research also discusses other ways to generate chemical energy, such as treating acetylene (a rich compound) with hydrogen.

"In this article, I want to study the choice of chemical energy and the possibility of alternative energy," said Hendricks, a staff scientist at the non-profit Institute of Planetary Science. My co-author Yuk Yung and I studied the choice of chemistry, nuclear energy, geothermal energy, solar energy, hydropower and wind energy of Titan. The original intention of this paper is to conduct a high-level inspection of some of these topics.

Related: Saturn's moon Titan may provide a glimpse of life because we don't know what it is.

Hendricks said that it is possible to use our existing technology to generate such energy. She pointed out that we can get it through proper research, especially in the environment of Titan. For example, if we understand the properties of different photovoltaic cell materials-most importantly, the way they behave on Titan,

Hydropower needs to better map Titan's rich lake areas, including their topography and current velocity. Even wind power generation requires some research on airborne wind turbines, but Hendricks says all these options are promising.

"I think, just like on Earth, the combination of energy is useful for Titan," she said. In particular, solar energy (using large arrays) and wind energy (using airborne wind turbines) may be particularly effective.

Related: A City on Mars: elon musk introduced the colonial red planet of Space Exploration Technology Company in detail.

If the plan is implemented properly, it will need enough energy to meet the needs of a small outpost. For example, Hendricks did not ask human beings to perform a task of finding life on the surface, but envisioned a future that could generate energy for several years. One case-the titanium content of solar panels exceeds 10% tan surface area-will generate electricity demand of about 300 million people, equivalent to the demand of the United States.

"Of course, this is only a preliminary estimate, but what we are talking about is much bigger than the short-term human scientific mission to Titan," Hendricks said.

The goal announced by NASA is to send humans to Mars in 1930s. However, space agencies are still focused on Mars exploration. In September this year, Cassini's robotic mission on Saturn and its satellites ended its observation work, and NASA and the European Space Agency are planning to carry out more mission to mars in the next few years. Although NASA is considering a mission to Europa, the moon of Uranus, Neptune and Jupiter, Saturn is not in the plan.

Originally published in The Explorer.