So, hey, it rains Natural Gas on one of Saturn's Moons...

lol, I didn't know what the hell to name this thread =I

Source.

Quote:

It has taken nine years, hundreds of millions of dollars and a huge amount of effort, but planetary scientists have finally found another place with a topography quite like Earth's.
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The images were eerily familiar. What the scientists saw looked like dunes, hills, valleys and -- most unusual -- rivers running into lakes. If further studies prove that the dark, ovoid features on the vast landscape are indeed lakes, Titan will be the only body in the solar system besides Earth possessing that geological feature.
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Titan's surface temperature averages 292 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The landscape, carved by wind and a constant drizzle, is made up largely of ice, not rock. It takes nearly 30 years for Saturn to orbit the sun, so each of Titan's seasons is a little more than seven years long.

The liquid that falls from the sky and runs down into the lakes isn't water. It is some form of liquid hydrocarbon -- very possibly methane, or what we know as natural gas. In Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, scientists reported that methane appears to fall on Titan in a constant, year-round slight drizzle.
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Hydrocarbons evaporate off Titan's surface and recondense in clouds. During that process, some molecules react with sunlight, just as happens in Earth's smoggy cities. Because there is little oxygen on Titan, the compounds are different and even more unappealing.

Sorry if this doesn't interest folks in general, but I know there are a few space exploration supporters who would get a kick out of this.

A few important things. Firstly, veeeeeery few planets have a sort of wind and such things that'd deform surfaces. Mars had it some time ago (billions of years ago) but that has ended.

Secondly, a reason why gathering resources from other planets would be dandy. Of course, I'm sure by the time we could reach the planet, we'd be past natural gas needs.

Third, don't light a match =(

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Arainach

Nothing wrong with lighting a match. Titan doesn't have enough oxygen for the fire to get far.

Don't kill my fun ;_; O'course there's too little oxygen (if any).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Bear in mind a few things:
1) By the time we plan on actively harvesting resources (like this for example), we'll be much further along technologically. Stagnation in space exploration across the last three decades has put us behind where we should be. If we kept punching money to NASA like we were in Space Race days and what-not, we'd have much faster means of travel in space. Instead, we're pissing away the money elsewhere
2) Bear in mind that we probably won't be relying on Natural Gas for much of anything by the time we can finally establish some sort of route to get there and come back. If we still are using gas around that time, I'm sure we'll have a way to get it to burn cleaner. I can see the point you're addressing, though, in introducing more CO2 into our atmosphere than our planet carries.

Many things look unfeasible in their infancy. Space travel is in that stage. Evidently, it's growth has been stunted and it remains a midget

How ya doing, buddy?