My trip to Titan is almost over. Soon, I’ll have to find some other planet or moon to blog from. But before I leave, there’s one last thing I want to do: fly.

Titan’s atmosphere is about 50% denser than the atmosphere on Earth. Combine that with the low surface gravity (a mere 14% of Earth normal) and it should be possible, theoretically, for me to put on some wings and flap around in the sky like a bird.

Taking my cue from the myth of Icarus, my artificial wings will not be made of wax, although it’s cold enough here on Titan that there’d be no danger of wax wings melting.

So with my non-wax wings strapped to my arms, I leap into the air, and….

Okay, that didn’t go according to plan, so I turn to the Internet for help (the wifi on Titan is surprisingly good, by the way). I soon find this helpful article from the Journal of Physics Special Topics.

One option is that I try to get a running start. I’m really going to have to sprint here; average human running speed (6 m/s) won’t cut it. I need to reach a minimum of 11 m/s. And…

… nope. I’m a nerd, not an athlete. Sprinting isn’t my thing.

So my next option is to build bigger wings. According to the paper from Physics Special Topics, the total area of my wings needs to be at least 4.7 m². I’ll go for 5 m², just to be safe.

The good news is that once I’m off the ground, I won’t need to use much energy to stay aloft. Flying on Titan should be “effortless and relatively easy […] without any sort of propulsion device.” Sounds like just a little light flapping should do the trick.

Okay, so here we go.

P.S.: The Journal of Physics Special Topics may be my new favorite scientific periodical, with articles covering topics like cows jumping over the Moon, the effects of general relativity on Santa Claus, and the atmospheric loss caused by opening a portal between Earth and the Moon (as depicted in the video game Portal 2).

I’ve made a friend on Titan: a giant, multi-tentacled monster that swims around in Titan’s lakes of liquid methane. Today, my new friend invited me to go swimming with him. While that does sound like fun, there are a few problems with that idea:

• I can’t exactly change into my swimming trunks. There’s no oxygen in Titan’s atmosphere, so I need my bulky spacesuit. But even if that weren’t a problem….
• Liquid methane is a cryogenic fluid. It’s not quite as cold as liquid nitrogen, but still… If I stick my toe in the methane, my toe will probably flash freeze and shatter. But even if that weren’t a problem….
• I would sink straight to the bottom of the lake. Liquid methane is significantly less dense than water and significantly less dense than the human body. I wouldn’t be able to float, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to swim.

However, I didn’t want to disappoint my new friend, and I did come prepared for a possible excursion over a methane lake. So I hurried back to my spaceship and grabbed my boat.

I’ve been exploring the surface of Titan for several weeks now. During my time here, I have not discovered alien life, but alien life sure has discovered me. Fortunately, the Titanian lake monster I met on Friday is friendly, and he was super excited about meeting someone “from the stars.”

“Wait,” I said, “you know about the stars?”

“Oh yes,” the lake monster said. “I look up at them, twinkling in the night, and also the great orb with the rings around it.”

This really left me flummoxed. I can’t see Saturn at all from the surface of Titan (and I was pretty upset about it too). I certainly can’t see the stars. I can’t even see the Sun through all the tholin haze layered up in Titan’s atmosphere.

However, the tholin haze does allow certain wavelengths of light to pass through, mostly in the infrared part of the spectrum. The haze is almost completely transparent at a wavelength of 2000 nanometers (nm), which is how the infrared camera on the Cassini spacecraft has been able to photograph Titan’s surface.

The human eye can only detect light between roughly 400 and 700 nm. That’s because humans evolved on a planet where the 400 to 700 nm range is dominant, while life on Titan evolved in an environment where infrared light shines the most clearly.

So my new lake monster friend sees in infrared, possibly right around the 2000 nm range, and when he looks up into the sky he can see the Sun and stars and even Saturn, while all I see is gloomy orange haze.

Your first steps on a new world should be an auspicious occasion. With that in mind, I have just landed on Titan. I’ve opened the hatch of my spaceship. I’m descending the ladder. I’m taking my first step….

I should have expected this. Titan may be too cold for liquid water, but it’s the right temperature and pressure for liquid methane.

There’s enough liquid methane (and also liquid ethane) to form lakes and rivers. It rains liquid hydrocarbons, and the ground is saturated with this stuff. Add tholins to the mix, and you’ve really got yourself in a sticky situation.

When the Huygens probe landed on Titan in 2005, it found surface conditions that the Huygens team compared to crème brûlèe: a layer of soft, gooey material with a thin, hardened crust on top.

No one can say for sure if the Huygens landing site is truly representative of the entire surface of Titan, but still… I should have expected to get my space boots dirty.

And here’s another thing I should have expected. You see, Titan has an atmosphere (approximately 95% nitrogen, less than 5% methane). In fact, Titan’s atmosphere is slightly denser than the atmosphere on Earth, so sound waves travel pretty well. Which means that as I trudge across the Titanian landscape, I can actually hear my space boots squishing in the mud.

P.S.: One more thing I should’ve thought about sooner. I’m going to have to figure out a way to clean my spacesuit before getting back into my spaceship. All this hydrocarbon gunk is going to become a real fire hazard once I’m back in an oxygen-rich environment.