TITAN: SATURN’S LARGEST MOON

BY

NINA DAVIS

BASIC FACTS• Discovered by Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch

Astronomer, on March 25, 1655• It was named after an ancient race of

giant beings in Greek Mythology• Orbits Saturn as the largest moon• Distance from the Sun: 9.5 AU

•Atmosphere: 95% nitrogen (N2) and 5% methane (CH4)

Christiaan Huygens

Titan orbiting Saturn

BASIC FACTS• Surface Temperature: -290F• Tidally Locked to Saturn• No moons• 1 day= 16 Earth days• I year= 29.5 Earth years (same as

Saturn)

Titan

Titan

TITAN’S SURFACE•Diameter: 3,200.051 miles (about half the size of Earth and almost as large as Mars)•Rivers, oceans, lakes, seas are made up of methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6)

• Believed to be a subsurface ocean made of water (H2O)

Titan

An Artist’s Impression of Methane Marshes

TITAN’S SURFACE•Air pressure is 1 1/2 times that of Earth (1013.25 millibars)•Atmospheric pressure is 60% greater than Earth’s•Scientist have stated that there is possibility of life, but not as we know it• It is still the most Earth like (blank) in

the solar system

Layers of Titan

Surface of Titan

DISCOVERING TITAN’S SECRETS• Probe: Voyager 1 made the first flyby in

1980• Wasn’t able to take close up photos of

Titan due to thick clouds• Probe: Cassini space craft has made many

flybys since 2004• It was designed to see through Titan’s

thick atmosphere• It was able to drop a small space craft

called Huygens onto the surface in 2005

Composite photo taken from the surface of Titan by the probe,

Huygens.

Photo of Titan’s mountain taken by the

probe, Huygens, on it’s descent onto the

moon