• Question: Do you think it will ever be possible for humans to land on Saturn?

    Asked by anon-254525 on 14 May 2020.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 14 May 2020:

      Very interesting question!

      First of all, there is nothing to land on, Saturn is a gas giant so there is no surface – the atmosphere just gradually becomes a liquid – and the transition is so “fuzzy” that there is no “border” even.

      Interestingly, if we were at the top of Saturn’s atmosphere, we’d feel about the same gravity as on Earth – about 10 m/s^2! So hypothetically, some sort of balloon base might work, to “mine” the hydrogen from its atmosphere. The problem then would be the intense winds in the atmosphere, and of course coming and going would be challenging to say the least.

      I think setting up a base on one of Saturn’s moons would be as close as we’d go. Enceladus for instance is very attractive because it has water – but we have to check if there is life before we go so we don’t ruin it. Then, from such a base, exploring Saturnian system will be much easier – and safer.

Comments

  • Photo: Susan

    Susan commented on :

    No, because – as Oleg says – there is no surface to land on. If you were to descend into Saturn’s atmosphere, the pressure would just get greater and greater until the stuff surrounding you was not gaseous anymore, but liquid – and there probably would not be a sharp transition between the two, so you would not experience a “splashdown” or anything like that. Realistically, anything we’re capable of building would probably have been squashed flat long before you reached that point, though!

    We could, as Joel says, realistically land on some of Saturn’s larger moons. (Landing on very small moons is challenging: their escape velocity is so small that if you took a step on the surface you would risk launching yourself back into space!)

    The one I would pick is Titan. It is a very large moon (slightly larger than the planet Mercury), so you would be safe from inadvertent take-off, and more importantly it is the only moon in the entire solar system to have its own atmosphere, and that atmosphere is remarkably similar to ours (the pressure is 50% higher, and it is nearly 100% nitrogen instead of 80% nitrogen/20% oxygen). In principle, you could walk around on Titan without a spacesuit, though you would need breathing gear (there is no oxygen) and a very effective heating system (Titan’s surface temperature is 94 K, or -179 C). Titan would be intresting to explore: it has lakes and rivers (though they are made of liquid methane or ethane, not water – which is a rock on Titan), and clouds and rain (though, again, not of water). It is even conceivable, though not very likely, that some strange sort of life might exist on Titan – it would have to be based on liquid methane or ethane, so not at all like Earth life, but some astrobiologists think that it is possible.

  • Photo: John

    John commented on :

    Land on Saturn -No for all the reasons above.

    Go to Saturn and explore the moons, maybe, but not for a long time. One day I hope humans will be a planet faring civilisation who travel around the solar system, but outside science fiction it is just not possible yet. The solar system is a really big place, and humans are pretty fragile to keep alive in space. So for now we’re stuck with books like 2001 A Space Odyssey (Saturn is the target in the book version) or ‘Imperial Earth’ which is about someone who lives at Saturn and comes to Earth for a visit. Read these and dream. In the meantime, you can help to build a robotic explorer
    to investigate the water ocean under Enceladus or the methane lakes on Titan, both of which have been discovered since I was at school.