Titan
What is Titan?
Moons· Diameter 5,150 km. The only world besides Earth with liquid lying on its surface, in rivers and lakes of methane beneath a thick nitrogen sky. NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft is due to launch in 2028 and fly there in 2034.
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Orbit and size
| Diameter | 5,150 km |
|---|---|
| Parent | Saturn |
| Note | methane lakes under thick N₂ air |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Parent planet and sibling moons
Related events
- Dragonfly launch — to Titan(planned)
- Dragonfly lands on Titan(planned)
Why Titan's lakes crowd into the north
Titan goes around the Sun together with Saturn once every 29.5 years, so each season lasts more than seven years. When Cassini arrived in 2004 it was winter in Titan's north; by the end of the mission in 2017 summer was beginning. One spacecraft had watched an entire Titan spring from start to finish. Over that time the southern lakes shrank, and methane clouds and rain appeared in the north.
Most of the methane lakes and seas lie near the north pole. Scientists explain this with the long seasons as well. Because Saturn's orbit is slightly stretched, southern summers on Titan are short and intense. Strong sunlight evaporates methane quickly in the south, and the methane moves north, slowly collecting there during the long, mild northern summer. The largest sea, Kraken Mare, is about the size of the Caspian Sea, and parts of Ligeia Mare are more than 150 m deep.
What lies inside Titan is still uncertain. For years, gravity data from Cassini led scientists to think a global ocean lay beneath the icy shell. In December 2025, however, a new analysis of the same data concluded that slushy layers of ice with small pockets of water are more likely than one large ocean. Dragonfly is set to land in 2034 among dunes near the equator and look for places where liquid water once met organic material.
The moon in depth
Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a thick atmosphere. The air pressure at the ground is 1.5 times Earth's, and like Earth's air it is mostly nitrogen. At −179 °C, water is frozen as hard as rock. Methane, however, is liquid at that temperature and takes the role water plays on Earth: methane clouds form, methane rain falls, and methane rivers flow into lakes.
In 2005 the European Space Agency's Huygens probe landed on Titan, 1.4 billion km from the Sun, the most distant landing any spacecraft has made. On the way down it photographed branching channels like river valleys, and at the landing site it saw rounded pebbles of water ice. They appear to have been worn smooth by flowing liquid.
In Titan's atmosphere, sunlight turns methane and nitrogen into many kinds of organic compounds. Scientists therefore see Titan as a natural laboratory for the chemistry that may come before life. To study it directly, NASA plans to send Dragonfly, a drone with eight rotors. Thick air and weak gravity make flying easier on Titan than on Earth, so Dragonfly will hop from site to site to analyze the surface.
Frequently asked
- How big is Titan?
- The diameter of Titan is 5,150 km.
- What is notable about Titan?
- The note of Titan is methane lakes under thick N₂ air.
- Which planet does Titan orbit?
- Titan orbits Saturn.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.