Elpis Macula
What Elpis Macula is
Elpis Macula is a macula — a dark spot — on Titan, 500 km across, centred at 31.2° N, 27.0° W. It is the 31st largest named feature on Titan and the 1st largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Greek goddess of happiness and hope. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2006, under the theme it applies to every macula on Titan. Of the 7 features of this class catalogued on Titan, the naming categories run Slavic (2), Greek (1), Aztec (1), India (1).
What it would take to settle Elpis Macula
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 31.2° N, 27.0° W.
What this spot has going for it is sunlight — 87% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets. What works against it is temperature — about -179 °C mean at this latitude.
Computed from Elpis Macula'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.