NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

Liquid Sea on Saturn's Titan

What is this vast dark region on Titan? Quite possible a sea of liquid hydrocarbons [ http://en.wikipedia…]. The region was imaged earlier this month when the robotic Cassini spacecraft [ http://en.wikipedia…] swooped past Saturn's cloudy moon and illuminated part of it with radar. The dark region in the above image [ http://photojournal…] reflected little radar, an effect expected were the dark surface [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] relatively flat, as expected for a liquid. Other indications that the vast dark area is liquid include the coastline-like topology [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] of the brighter regions, which appear to include islands, inlets [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], and tributary channels. The uninterrupted smoothness of much of the dark sea may indicate that the sea runs deep, with speculation [ http://photojournal…] holding a depth estimate of tens of meters. A hydrocarbon sea [ http://photojournal…] on Titan [ http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Titan_(moon ) ] holds particular interest for exobiologists [ http://exobiology.n…] as it might be a place where life could develop. In 2005 the Huygens probe landed on Titan and returned the first surface image [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]s. Cassini will continue to explore Titan, as 13 more flybys [ http://saturn.jpl.n…] are planned.

Cassini Radar Mapper [ http://saturn.jpl.n…], JPL [ http://www.jpl.nasa…], ESA [ http://www.esa.int/], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]

2005

Saturn

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Moon

Saturn

Cassini

Titan

Huygens Probe

Radar Mapper

2005

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap070530