Scientists have predicted world's fastest man Usain Bolt could fly like a bird, with the aid of a wing suit, if the world record holder lived on Saturn's biggest moon, Titan.

It has long been theorised that people could fly given the condition of Titan, where a dense nitrogen-rich atmosphere and a surface pressure also 50 per cent stronger than Earth exists. The students decided to put the theory to the test.

They found that with a normal-size wing suit, routinely used by sky divers, a run-up of 11 metres per second would be required in order to take off. Bolt has clocked top speeds of 12.27 metres per second, meaning he would be able to take off as he got to the finish line of a 100-metre race. In theory, the athlete would then be able to soar above the planet, without any need for propulsion, said researchers at the University of Leicester in the UK. Physics students at the university made the calculations in their final-year paper for the Journal of Physics Special Topics.

To calculate the speed needed, the group factored in: the density of air at the surface of Titan; the acceleration due to gravity; an average wing suit wing area (approximately 1.4 metres squared); and the ratio of the streamline path of the air above the aerofoil to that below the aerofoil.

"I had seen a lot of claims online that humans would be able to fly on Titan, but no one had given the physics behind it," said student Hannah Lerman, 21, from Mill Hill, North London.

"I thought it would be interesting to try it with a wing suit - something that you actually use on Earth. It is a really exciting idea that someone like Usain Bolt could actually fly unaided. It would give a whole new dimension to travelling," Lerman said.