2023-07-01 17:10:02
News JVTech The largest reserve of hydrocarbons is neither in Russia nor in the Persian Gulf: it is on Titan, the moon of Saturn
Published on 01/07/2023 at 19:10
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The Earth has many hydrocarbon reserves, particularly in Russia and in the Persian Gulf. But did you know that the most important reserve was 1.4 billion kilometers from home, on Titan, Saturn’s moon?
A discovery that is more than a century old
The first person to suggest that Titan might have an atmosphere was Josep Comas i Solá on August 13, 1907. “Using 750 magnification, I saw Titan and its edges very dark, blending into the darkness of the sky (…). One can legitimately assume that this great darkness at the edges demonstrates the existence of a very absorbing atmosphere around Titan., said the Catalan astronomer. And you know what ? That was over a century ago, and he was already right. Actually, beyond having an atmosphere, the moon of Saturn is also very close to our tender and dear blue planet.
First, because it is the only other rocky planet in the solar system that has large expanses of liquid on its surface. But also, because its atmosphere (with its storms, storms and anticyclones) is very similar. The only “problem” is that the seas are made of methane and the deserts of silicates, as well as hydrocarbons. The Cassini-Huygens probe, in 2013, made it possible to calculate the depth of one of these seas and to confirm that Titan does indeed contain 40 times more hydrocarbons than all the oil wells on Earth.
Immense resources that raise several questions
It is clear that, even if the exploitation of the hydrocarbons of Titan were profitable, we do not yet have the technology to do it and it is a safe bet that when it is, the hydrocarbons will probably not be enough ” juicy” to make it worth it. However, Titan’s massive oil wells make us wonder regarding space mining. And following all, this is normal, since it is NASA, itself, which claims that the value of all the minerals stored in the asteroids of the main belt of our solar system represents approximately hundred billion dollars for each person on earth.
Photo credit: Pexels
A few years ago, astronomer and popularizer Neil deGrasse Tyson said in an interview that “the first trillionaire will be the one who will exploit the natural resources of asteroids”. If the annual production of raw metals on Earth reaches 660,000 million dollars per year, those extracted from asteroids might, for their part, reach the quintillion. The world would have seen nothing like this since the discovery of American gold and silver deposits 500 years ago: the global economy would be changed forever.
In 2014, several Tel Aviv University students pointed out that the first shipment of metals from an asteroid returning to Earth might cause the price of gold to fall by 50%. The same would happen with the rest of the minerals mined in space and Titan, with its hydrocarbons, would not even enter this first phase. And it’s when you take a closer look at this kind of thing that you realize that space is dangerous in many ways.
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