Titan’s Lakes and the Drive to Explore

What is it that makes us want the stars? Surely there are philosophical reasons that push us into the universe, and in his book Quest: The Essence of Humanity (2004), Charles Pasternak delves into ‘questing’ as a drive embedded in the species. But alongside a need to explore I can see two other drivers. One is the urge to know whether life exists elsewhere, and ultimately, whether there are other technological civilizations somewhere in the galaxy. The other is simple survival: We need to move into the universe as a backup plan in case of disaster here on Earth, whether that disaster is caused by an asteroid or a human activity gone awry.
This morning I’m musing on all this in the context of recent news from the outer Solar System, where the data we’re analyzing from the Cassini mission are matched only by our desire to have still further, more targeted explorations. We learn, for example, that Titan has lakes around its equator. Lakes on Titan aren’t a surprise: We’ve already known about lakes of methane and ethane like Ligeia Mare near the moon’s poles. But now we have evidence of a 2400 square kilometer body of liquid with ...