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
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