What is Titan?
Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the second-largest moon in the solar system. It is the only moon with a thick atmosphere and the only place besides Earth known to have liquid lakes and seas on its surface.
Titan is larger than the planet Mercury. Its thick, hazy atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, like Earth's, with a surface pressure about 50 percent higher than ours. But Titan is extremely cold, around minus 180 degrees Celsius, so its lakes and seas are filled with liquid methane and ethane rather than water.
Titan has weather, with methane clouds and rain, rivers, dunes and seasons. Scientists believe it also has a hidden ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. Its rich organic chemistry makes it a key place to study how the building blocks of life might form.
Exploring Titan
In 2005, the European Huygens probe, carried by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, landed on Titan, the most distant landing ever made. NASA's Dragonfly mission, a nuclear-powered rotorcraft, is planned to launch in 2028 and fly between locations on Titan's surface.
Did You Know?
Titan was discovered in 1655 by Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, after whom the probe that landed there was named.