Images from Cassini

A shining glint in a photograph shot by the Cassini probe confirmed to scientists that Saturn's moon Titan has surface lakes : "Cassini has been looking for this mystical glint since reaching Saturn in 2004, but winter had shrouded the northern half of Titan. The sun began shining on this area, which contains more lakes than the southern hemisphere, in August 2009 during the moon’s spring equinox. The glint comes from the southern shoreline of the sprawling Kraken Mare lake, which covers about 400,000 square kilometers of Titan’s surface. The image proves the lake has been stable for at least three years, indicating that ... Read Full Story

Cloud chasers studying Saturn’s moon Titan say its clouds form and move much like those on Earth, but in a much slower, more lingering fashion. Their forecast for Titan’s early autumn — warm and wetter.   Scientists with NASA’s Cassini mission have monitored Titan’s atmosphere for three-and-a-half years, between July 2004 and December 2007, and observed more than 200 clouds. They found that the way these clouds are distributed around Titan matches scientists’ global circulation models. The only exception is timing — clouds are still noticeable in the southern hemisphere while fall is approaching.     Lots of clouds are visible in this infrared ... Read Full Story

"Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material -- it's a giant factory of organic chemicals." "We are carbon-based life, and understanding how far along the chain of complexity towards life that chemistry can go in an environment like Titan will be important in understanding the origins of life throughout the universe." ~Ralph Lorenz -Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. ... Read Full Story

No, it's not science fiction: If space travelers ever visit Saturn's largest moon, they will find a tropical world where temperatures plunge to minus 274 degrees Fahrenheit, methane rains from the sky and dunes of ice or tar cover the planet's most arid regions -a cold mirror image of Earth's tropical climate, according to scientists at the University of Chicago.   (Image shows panoramic fisheye view from ESA's Huygen's spacecraft obtained from about five kilometers above Titan's surface. The digital projection makes the local surface, mostly flat, appear as a ball, but allows one to see in all directions. Huygen's eventual landing site was ... Read Full Story

A giant, glassy lake larger than North America's Lake Ontario graces the south pole of Saturn's largest moon Titan, new research from the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory confirms. Titan, which is one-and-a-half times the size of Earth's moon and bigger than either Mercury or Pluto, is one of the most intruiging bodies in the solar system when it comes to exploring environments that may give rise to life. "This is the first observation that really pins down that Titan has a surface lake filled with liquid," said lead researcher Robert Brown of the University of Arizona.  The lake which covers 20,000 ... Read Full Story