SATURN’S MOON-TITAN
Titan
DISCOVERY
Titan was discovered by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens on March 25th, 1655. Titan is the second-largest moon in the Solar System. It is also bigger than planet Mercury and Earth’s moon. It is an icy world whose surface is completely dubious by a golden hazy atmosphere. Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s four largest moons in the year 1610 and his improvement in telescope technology made a great impact on Christiaan Huygens and he was inspired by him. Around 1650, with the help of his brother, he began erecting a telescope and discovered the first observed moon orbiting Saturn with one of his telescopes. it was the sixth moon that was ever discovered, after Earth’s moon and the Galilean moons of Jupiter.
He named his discovery as Saturni Luna or Luna Saturni (“The Latin name for a moon of Saturn”), published in the 1655 tract De Saturni Luna Observatio Nova. The name Titan comes from the Titans, a race of immortals in Greek mythology. Countless small moons have been discovered around Saturn since then.
FACET OF TITAN
SIZE & DISTANCE: — Titan has a radius of about 1,600 miles and is nearly 50% wider than Earth’s moon. It is 759,000 miles away from Saturn, which itself is about 886 million miles from the Sun. Sun’s light takes about 80 minutes to reach Titan.
CONFIGURATION: — Titan’s internal structure is not entirely known yet. But based on the data from Cassini- Huygens mission it suggests that Titan has 5 primary layers. The deep-seated layer is the core of the rock. About 2500 miles in diameter. Surrounding the core is a shell of water ice (a special type called ice-VI which is only found at tremendously high pressure) which is surrounded by a layer of salty liquid water on top of which is a layer of the outer crust of water ice. This surface is coated with organic molecules that have rained or settled out of the atmosphere in the lines of sand and liquids.
Surface of Titan
FORMATION: — Scientists aren’t certain about Titan’s origin. However, its atmosphere gave a clearance about its origin. Instruments by NASA and ESA measured the isotopes nitrogen-14 and nitrogen-15 in Titan’s atmosphere. They found that the Titan’s isotope ratio more resembles that of comets from the Oort Cloud. Titan’s atmospheric nitrogen ratio suggests that the moon’s building blocks formed early in the Solar System, in the same cold disk of dust and gas that formed the Sun.
ATMOSPHERE: — Our Solar System is home to more than 150 moons, but Titan is different because it is the only moon with a thick atmosphere. Here the atmospheric pressure is about 60 % on the surface. Titan is less massive than Earth, its gravity doesn’t hold onto its gaseous envelope as tightly, so the atmosphere extends to an altitude 10 times higher than earth. The atmosphere of Titan is opaque at many wavelengths and as a result, a complete reflectance spectrum of the surface is impossible to acquire from orbit. Its atmospheric composition is nitrogen (97%), methane (2.7±0.1), and hydrogen (0.1–0.2), with more gases.
Structure of Titan
SURFACE: — The surface of Titan is mostly like Earth’s places in the Solar System. Titan may have volcanic activity as well, but with liquid water “Lava” instead of molten rock. Vast regions of dark dunes stretch across Titan’s landscape, primarily around the equatorial region these dunes’ sand is composed of dark hydrocarbon grains. Titan have few visible impact craters. Although scientists do not see evidence of a planet like Earth.
ROTATION & ORBIT: — Titan takes 15 days and 22 hours to complete a full orbit revolution around Saturn. It always shows the same face to the planet as its orbit. It took 29 years to orbit the Sun. Titan orbits roughly along the Saturn's equatorial plane.
POSSIBILITIES OF LIFE ON TITAN
The largest moon of Saturn is an open question and topic to research. Titan is far too colder than Earth, but of all the places in the Solar System. Titan is the only place besides Earth to have liquids in the form of rivers, lakes, and seas on its surface area. Its atmosphere is chemically active and rich in carbon compounds. Many scientists speculate that these liquid mixes may provide prebiotics for living cells differently from the Earth. Robert Zubrian, the American aerospace engineer identified Titan as the most important moon on which to establish a base to develop the resources.
