Fan Fiction ❯ Titan ❯ The quest for discovery ( Chapter 1 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

The Sol system has many different planets and moons. Closest to the tiny star is Mercury, a small world, only 0.055 the mass of our planet. It has no atmosphere and a surface temperature of 350 degrees Celsius. Nothing could survive there.
Next is Venus. It is almost the same size as Earth and shrouded in clouds of carbon-dioxide. These clouds cause the temperature to rise as high as 480 degrees. The surface is a barren wasteland, cooked incessantly by the thick cloud blanket. Nothing can live here either.
The next planet is very interesting. Earth is slightly larger than Venus, but the carbon-dioxide level makes up less than one percent of the atmosphere. The average surface temperature is about 25 degrees and 66 percent of the planet is covered with water, most of which is rich in minerals. These conditions are perfect for supporting life and Earth is pretty much overrun with it. They get a good view of their small, native moon.
Beyond Earth is Mars. It is small (about a tenth of the mass of Earth) and cold (less then minus 20 degrees). The 'Red Planet' once had an atmosphere, with seas covering most of the world and a temperature only slightly less than ours. Microscopic fossils were discovered in the early twenty first century, tiny organisms that had apparently thrived on their wonderful world. But the gravity let them down. Mars' atmosphere began to leak away slowly into space and the temperature started to drop. The boiling point of water fell and the vast seas began to evaporate, forming a new atmosphere of steam over a bone dry world. This eventually disappeared too leaving the place as a dry and frozen stone. Life began to grow but now all hope is gone of appreciating this planets double moons.
A large asteroid belt drifts silently in an orbit of Sol. Every so often a rock will fall out of orbit and float either into the terrible furnace of the star or into the cold void of space.
The previous planets are protected from a lot of interstellar debris by the awesome gravitational forces of Jupiter. The gas giant has almost 318 times the mass of Earth and the powers emitted from the planet cause storms that could mask most of the other planets in the system. It sucks in a lot of asteroids that break away from the outer belt and has already acquired 16 moons. Despite its fantastic size Jupiter is frigidly cold with an average surface temperature of minus 150 degrees. Anything that tried to stand on Jupiter would be instantly crushed.
Saturn is an intriguing place. It is about 95 times bigger than Earth but being made mainly from gas it has only a slightly higher gravity than Earth, a proportionally tiny 1.16 G's. Saturn possesses some fantastic rings, as well as 18 moons. The rings and 17 of the 18 moons all follow the equator suggesting that they were formed at the same time as the planet itself. Only the outermost moon doesn't comply to this pattern and this was discovered to have come from the outer belt. The gravity could not have caught too many asteroids. The average surface temperature drops to minus 180 degrees. Nothing could live here because of the temperature and the fact that it has no solid surface. You can't stand on gas.
Uranus is freezing at a temperature of minus 214 degrees. It is fairly large at fourteen times the mass of Earth and has an amazing 20 moons, although it has almost the same gravity as Saturn, 1.17 G's. Uranus has rather small rings that are not easily visible from any decent distance from the planet. The surface is mainly hydrogen and helium gas
Neptune is the final gas giant and is the twin of Uranus. This world is approximately the same size as Uranus and has a similar mass and gravity. It is only 6 degrees colder and does indeed possess small rings and its surface also is made from hydrogen and helium. However, this planet only has 8 moons instead of its twins 20. An interesting feature is the orbit of Neptune which takes it out beyond Pluto every now and then. If it can't live on Uranus it can't live on Neptune.
Pluto was thought to be the outermost planet until 2004 A.D when it was discovered to be seconded by Sedna. Pluto is a miniscule 0.0022 of Earths mass and is smaller than Luna. It is minus 220 degrees on the surface. It is absolutely solid with a stone core and a rock hard mantle of ice. Pluto has a single moon, but at almost half Pluto's size it cannot be called a moon any more than a twin planet. Pluto is much to small and barren for life.
Sedna is the outermost planet and almost nothing is known about it. It does, however, appear to have enough gravity to alter the course of the outer gas giants, an intriguing idea. This suggests a high mass. Nothing could survive here due to the temperature. If something could stand the unbelievable cold it could not nourish itself on the minerals frozen as hard as a rock.
Finally there is the Kuiper belt. A large and distant asteroid belt that orbits at the far edge of the solar system. These asteroids are the oldest objects orbiting Sol and every so often one will drift out of its neat little orbit and glide toward the star. Very little is known about these far away stones and most of the information has been learned from Phoebe, the outermost moon of Saturn, which is almost certainly a captured asteroid from the Kuiper belt. There is no gravity here and anything trying to live there would simply float away.
At this point not much chance remains of finding life anywhere in the Sol system. Earth and Mars where the only chance of life, Earth flourished and sprouted life in every nook and cranny until everything seemed alive. The planet even seems green from space. A lot of chlorophyl. Mars began to spark with the minute flickers of microscopic life but it wasn't given a chance. Martians died out long ago. But there is another place.....
October 15.............. 't minus five' ...............1997................ 'four, three'................... 4:43 a.m. ............. 'two, one, ignition!!!!'.
The Cassini probe fired up its engines and blasted itself high above the Earths atmosphere, trailing a jet of burning hydrogen behind it. Thousands of lifeforms witnessed the launch of the second object from Earth to visit Saturn, 1277 million kilometers away. But this wasn't the probes true destination. After being ejected from its fuel rocket, the ship orbited the Earth and catapulted itself off into space. The timing was calculated to fling the craft around several other planets before being shot towards Saturn, through the planets rings and eventually left to orbit its final goal. Once in orbit, the small ship, laden with tools and instruments designed to send all available information about its target back to the homeworld, would eject a secondary probe, Huygens, for the close up.
After seven years of interstellar traveling, Cassini narrowly moved between the rings of Saturn, sending its creators vital information about the age and material of these circulating stones, pounding each other at 100,000 kilometers per hour. The probe nudged its way between the ballistic particles of rock and ice, and eventually emerged, unscathed, to continue its mission. The pictures and readings sent to Earth were astounding, Saturns rings were found to be made of ice but the outer rings were much more heavily contaminated with interstellar dust than the inner ones. It suggests that the rings are gradually being made at the planets equator, very exciting.
The ship moved on, past Saturn, past the rings, past moon after moon after moon. Until it came to its destination. A tiny, orange world, shrouded in clouds that obscure the surface below. The gravity is about a tenth of Earths and the place is frighteningly cold. Ideas form about the surface of this world. The clouds have been identified as amino acids, a substance made up from carbohydrates. These are the makings of genetic material and flesh. Water would freeze here and become so hard that it would be as tough as stone but volcanic activity far below the surface would liquidate it and cause it to erupt through its frozen casing. A certain and important carbohydrate, methane, would condense and flow like water, running streams of lighter fluid gliding gently down to the vast heaving oceans of liquid fuel. Occasionally the clouds let loose and rain this liquid methane down onto the world below. The low gravity means that the raindrops are much larger than Earths raindrops, like tennis balls, that fall at only about three miles per hour. They may well, on a hot day (about minus 170 degrees), evaporate before they strike the ground. Were a creature to stand beneath one and light it they would be able to watch a small fireball float softly to the floor. Heaven forbid one lands in a stream. But all of this was only theory and speculation.
On December 25 2004, Huygens was ejected from Cassini and jetted off towards the 15th moon of Saturn, the solar systems last hope for life other than Earth. It would be nice to say that humanity held its breath, all eyes were turned to their television screens to witness the epic decent of the Huygens probe. But they didn't. A few scientists stared in awe at Cassini's readings and waited eagerly for its probe to land. And the rest of the population got on with their lives. No one really believed that 'little green men' would ever exist. What a self centered species they are. It took three weeks but eventually Huygens entered the atmosphere of its target, the 15th moon of Saturn, a world known as Titan.
On the 14th January 2005 at approximately 6:12 p.m. a boom echoed across the face of a strange and frozen world. Something roared down through orange clouds filled with gaseous fuel. As the fireball smashed through a large funnel of coloured gas, illuminated by the powerful rays of the distant setting sun, the evaporated methane contained within it burst into flame, showering the ground below with a fantastic orange glow. The white hot object flashed across the strikingly green sky, trailing red fire behind it. As it slowed in its decent the fire flickered out and the object cooled to reveal a blackened and rounded cone. The weird object whistled down through the atmosphere and with a bang the outer casing split and fell away from the intricate devices within. Another bang went off and the whole thing jerked as a parachute unfolded behind it. The shining metallic machine glided slowly down to the cold solid surface. Something whirred in the mass of gears and three telescopic lenses appeared from behind a small heat shield. Slowly, it spun around the circumference of the object picking up every detail of the odd landscape far below. More heat shields retracted into the depths of the device and a number of other computerised sensors began to study the face of this world, launching sonic waves or picking up electromagnetic fields. Spectrometers ticked away, studying the frigid ground in every detail. After a few minutes it gracefully touched down with only a slight scraping noise. The hulk of metal lay silently on a jagged surface for a while and then with a small ping the metal cables connecting the pod to the parachute were released and the machine rose up on six, large wheels. With a final whirr it began to trundle away across the sheets of dusty ice, leaving a crumpled parachute and a burnt out blast shield to the natural forces of the cold world. An hour or so later the burning cloud went out and drifted away on the chilly wind.