jessriedel parent
Like the interior of the planet, the atmosphere is overwhelmingly hydrogen and helium. And helium is liquid even at 0 temperature unless under pressure, so presumably (?) would be liquid on the surface. These materials are mechanically very different than the silcates and metals dominating the Earth’s crust, and I don’t think we even have well measured bulk properties? Not sure what erosion processes would look like.
That's wild to think about. My mind is struggling to picture 'liquids on the surface' of Jupiter. No idea what that would look like.
I am deeply looking forward to the dragonfly mission to Titan, since we'll finally get high-resolution color images from the surface, which has liquid seas of hydrocarbons like methane and ethane at -290 F.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(Titan_space_probe)
The single image from the surface by the Huygens probe leaves a lot to be desired.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)#/media/File:Huyge...
#/media/File:Huygens_surface_color.jpg){kind=link}
Yeah this is gonna be awesome, appreciate the heads up!