Key facts
- Scale fact
- 5,150 kmdiameter
- Estimated age
- ~4.5 billion years
- Composition
- Water ice, silicate rock, nitrogen-methane atmosphere
- Temperature
- ~94 K surface
Titan
5,150 kmdiameter
Visual creditCassini 2009 / NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / CICLOPS / Kevin M. Gill / CC BY 2.0Source: Wikimedia Commons
Details
Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere. Its methane weather cycle feeds clouds, rain, rivers, lakes, and seas, making it one of the most world-like places beyond Earth.
Titan’s dense atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, with methane driving clouds, rain and seasonal changes. At the surface, methane and ethane collect in channels, lakes and seas; water behaves instead as rigid bedrock at about 94 kelvin.
Cassini mapped dunes and polar seas through the haze, while Huygens descended through the atmosphere and landed in 2005. Radar and gravity data also support a water-rich ocean beneath the icy crust, distinct from the hydrocarbon cycle visible at the surface.
Links
- Universe journey
- Asteroid belt & Jupiter
- Wikipedia
- Titan on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near Titan on the scale
Sources
References for Titan
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- Titan — Wikipedia
- Visual reference: Wikimedia Commons (Cassini 2009 / NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / CICLOPS / Kevin M. Gill, CC BY 2.0)
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.