Buzzell Planitia
What Buzzell Planitia is
Buzzell Planitia is a planitia — a low plain — on Titan, 870 km across, centred at 66.3° S, 97.3° E. It is the 17th largest named feature on Titan and the 3rd largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Planet from the Dune series; a cold planet, known for its lustrous Soostones, used as a âpunishment planetâ by the Bene Gesserit. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2016, under the theme it applies to every planitia on Titan.
What it would take to settle Buzzell Planitia
Titan scores 32.6 as a world. That number is the same for every square metre of it — but sunlight, water, radiation and the ground under your feet are not. This is the same question asked at 66.3° S, 97.3° E.
What this spot has going for it is ground — flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across. What works against it is temperature — about -180 °C mean at this latitude.
Computed from Buzzell Planitia's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 74% of the model's weight had a basis here, and 2 axes were dropped as not applicable to Titan (radiation geometry, earth link). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Titan and are already counted in the world's own index, not again here.
What this cannot see: elevation. Slope, local shadowing and the polar “peaks of eternal light” — ridge tops near the poles of a barely tilted world that catch sun almost continuously while a crater floor kilometres away never does — need a terrain model this does not have. Where a real mission targets a pole, that is usually why.
What is next to it
The largest planitia features on Titan
All 10 planitiae on Titan — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.