People are so used to the Earth that any spacewalk is very expensive, and the flight to another planet is postponed for dozens of years, and all because of our habits. We breathe air, bathe in the sea, enjoy the sunset and normal gravity, without even thinking about how unusual these same activities can be on other objects of the galaxy. In fact, what impossible things for our places can be possible anywhere else in space?
Basejumping. The most extreme kind of sport on Earth can become nothing more than a pleasant walk on another planet. Usually it looks like this: an athlete jumps in a special suit with wings from a high point and rushes a few meters from the picturesque land on the air streams. Then he opens the parachute and slowly descends on firm ground. But if you jump the same way on Titan, you can fly around the entire satellite.
Low gravity and atmospheric composition on this moon of Saturn would allow a person to realize an old dream: to fly like a bird. To think only, what new, extreme sports could be created literally at our side. To fly, it would be enough to jump. True, it is necessary to live without removing a special suit or leaving from under the dome.
Monstrous pressure and peculiarities of the atmosphere make absolutely unusual things possible for us. For example, the gas becomes … metal. Deep in the bowels of the giant planets of Saturn and Jupiter, where the pressure is millions of times greater than the terrestrial, an amazing substance is formed – metallic hydrogen. Scientists are trying to recreate it in the laboratory because of possibly useful properties. The compounds of metallic hydrogen can provide us with effective and clean fuel for rockets, and also superconductors that work at room temperature. It would overturn absolutely all areas of technology. And if we had somehow learned to exist in conditions close to Jovian, we could re-discover the periodic table of elements.
Some space houses would turn the habitual order of our life into torture. When the planet rotates very close to the star, the gravitational pull of the star can make the world “tidily blocked.” Such an object will always be turned by the same side to its star, as the Moon always shows one side of the Earth. This means that in one half of the ball there will always be night, and on the other – day. In this case, because of the endless stream of light, the water will evaporate and move to another, colder half of the planet. Such is the cycle. Temperatures will also fluctuate greatly. Life would be possible only in the so-called “twilight zones”, on the border of the two hemispheres. People could choose for themselves an eternal night or an eternal day.
In general, a few superfluous stars can radically change the view from the surface of the planet. We are used to observing the movement of the sun across the sky from day to day. But if there were more than one sun in our system? HD 188753 is the first discovered planet in the triple star system. The view from such a planet is simply stunning. Triple sunsets and sunrises, a play of light and rare nights. Each of us would cast three shadows at once. It would also be much more difficult to keep track of time.
But the most interesting thing that can be found on another planet or satellite is, of course, a life completely unlike our own composition and habitat conditions. And the most interesting thing is that we will be able to verify this very soon. A few years ago, scientists discovered on Titan strange lakes – reservoirs, in which water instead of water – methane. At the same time, Saturn’s satellite also has an atmosphere of hydrocarbons, many organic compounds and favorable conditions for the development of life. But how can this life be?
Scientists at Cornell University modeled a new type of creature that could breathe not oxygen, like us, but methane, which is very much on Titan. They succeeded in creating cell membranes consisting of nitrogen compounds and capable of functioning in liquid methane at a temperature of 273 degrees below zero.
Similarly, in our galaxy there are many places on which life could be based on silicon, not carbon, as on Earth. On our planet, she would never have found a place, like many other things. The new unique properties of the elements familiar to us could save us from hunger and poverty, open up new technologies and implement a quantum leap. A small premise from the diamond planet 55 Cancri e could solve all the financial problems of the Earth. That’s why we need to continue to explore the cosmos and look for unusual planets. To make the impossible possible.
