Saturn's largest satellite in terms of size ranks second among the moons of our solar system. This is an extraordinary world. The first place outside the Earth, where the existence of liquid tanks was discovered on the surface. It isn't water but methane. Precipitation on Titan make it unique.
Cassini, Titan, & Saturn
By Kevin Gill from Nashua, NH, United States link [CC BY-SA 2.0 license]
Titan circulates Saturn within 15 days and 22 hours. This satellite was discovered as the first moon of Saturn in 1655 by Christiaan Huygens. This moon larger than the planet Mercury has the most extensive atmosphere of all the moons of the Solar System. She gives it an orange color. It is dense and very difficult to observe the surface of the satellite. It's something like the atmosphere of the planet Venus. Titan gets only 1% of the solar energy that the planet Earth receives. Only 10% of this energy breaks to its surface. However, greenhouse gases (mainly methane) make the temperature here -179 degrees Celsius. The atmosphere of the satellite consists of many layers with a total thickness of about 1000 kilometers! It is heavier than the Earth's atmosphere, and atmospheric pressure on the moon's surface is half as high as on Earth. The composition of the atmosphere is mainly nitrogen and methane. Such an atmosphere causes phenomena and conditions with earthly similarities to occur here. Clouds arise here, rain falls and wind is blowing.
Titan, Earth & Moon size comparison
By Apollo 17 Picture of the Whole Earth: NASA, Telescopic Image of the Full Moon: Gregory H. Revera, Image of Titan: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute link [Public domain images and CC BY-SA 3.0 license for moon image]
Comparison of the size of Titan, Earth and our Moon. As you can see it is really a big globe, our silver seems tiny with it. The atmosphere of the Titan makes it look like a homogeneous, orange sphere. Titan probably has a rather complicated construction. It is estimated that it consists of almost half of the rocks and ice, which is why its average density is small. The rocky core of the satellite surrounds several layers of water ice, as well as a watery ocean at a depth of about 100 kilometers under the crust of the moon, built primarily of ice.
Inner layers of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn
By A. D. Fortes/UCL/STFC link [Public domain]
Titan is the only extraterrestial object in the Solar System whose surface has been found to contain liquid reservoirs. They include mainly ethane, methane and propane, but their proportions are different. Reservoirs are defined by lakes, and the largest of them are called even seas. They are usually deep for a few meters, but sometimes the depth of some may exceed 100 meters! Below a photo one of the lakes on Titan. There are also rivers here, some of them are miles away! It's amazing, right ?!
Ligeia Mare - a lake on Titan
By NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI link [Public domain]
Pioneer 11 was the first probe to study Titan, flying past Saturn in 1979. This probe provided information about the low temperature of the moon. Therefore, the probability of life on its surface was small. A year later, the Voyager 1 spacecraft investigated the satellite more closely. A breakthrough in research took place in 2004, when the Cassini spacecraft got there. A year later she left the Huygens lander (named after the Titan explorer) who landed on its surface. So far, it has been landing on the object most distant from Earth. The photograph below shows the surface of the Titan seen from the Huygens probe. We see stones here that are made of ice.
Titan's surface as seen by the Huygens probe
By ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona link1, link2 [Public domain]
Finally, I would like to show you an artistic vision of the surface of Titan. I must admit that it looks really climatic and works on the imagination. Think, view of such a landscape. It's amazing that this isn't a photo from Earth, our one of a kind planet. As you can see other worlds can be really interesting. It would be great to wait for a man to land on such a Titan, a man who goes on his surface, he sees, looks around and describes what he feels.
Artistic vision of Titan's surface
By Steven Hobbs link [Public domain]
Greetings to lovers of Astronomy!
Sources:
Titan
Life on Titan
Moons of Saturn
Saturn
and my knowledge...
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