Titan: Saturn's Smog Moon
The largest moon of
Saturn is a rare wonder.
Titan is the only one of Saturn's moons
with an atmosphere, and one of only two moons in the
Solar System with this distinction
(Neptune's
Triton is the other).
Titan's thick cloudy atmosphere is mostly nitrogen,
like Earth's, but contains much
higher percentages of "smog-like" chemicals
such as methane and ethane. The smog may be so thick
that it actually rains "gasoline-like" liquids.
The organic nature of some of the chemicals found in
Titan's
atmosphere cause some to speculate that
Titan may harbor life!
Because of its thick cloud cover,
however, Titan's actual surface properties remain mysterious.
Voyager 1 flew by in 1980 taking the
above picture, and more recently much has been learned from
observations by the
Hubble Space Telescope.
The
Cassini mission
launched in 1997 will map Titan's surface in 2004, helping to solve some
of its mysteries.