TITAN MOON OF SATURN ASTRO 101 Contributors: Duc Dinh, Spring 2016 Caroline Brandon, Fall 2014 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/titan_(moon)
Discovered by Christiaan Huygens in 1655 Has a dense atmosphere The largest moon of Saturn The second largest moon in the solar system after Jupiter s moon Ganymede According to NASA, Titan is one of the most Earth-like worlds that have been found Source: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/titan Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/titan_(moon)
This colorized mosaic from NASA's Cassini mission shows the most complete view of Titan's northern land of lakes and seas. This composite image shows an infrared view of Saturn's moon Titan from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, acquired during the mission's ''T-114'' flyby on Nov. 13, 2015 http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/?start=15&subcategory=10
Alternate Name: Saturn VI The name Titan comes from a generic term for the children of Ouranos (Uranus) and Gaia in ancient Greek mythology. In the stories, the Titans were the ancestors of the human race. Titan Atlas Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/atlas_(mythology) Source: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/index.cfm?sciencepageid=73
Size, Mass, and Internal Structure: 5151 Km( 3201 Miles ) in diameter, about half the size of Earth and almost as large as Mars. Mass: 1.3452 x 10^23 kg, about twice of our Moon Gravity: 1.352 m/s^2 Titan is likely differentiated into several layers with a 3,400 kilometer (2,100 mi) rocky center surrounded by several layers composed of different crystal forms of ice Its interior may still be hot and there may be a liquid layer consisting of a magma" composed of water and ammonia between the ice crust and deeper ice layers made of high-pressure forms of ice. Source: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageid=4468
Titan orbits Saturn once every 15 days and 22 hours. Saturn and Titan are tidally locked which are similar to our Earth and Moon. Titan s orbit (highlighted in red) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Titan_(moon)
Thought to have formed through coaccretion, a similar process to that believed to have formed the planets in the Solar System As the young gas giants formed, they were surrounded by discs of material that gradually coalesced into moons A proposed model for the formation of Titan begin by a series of giant planets impact, which would go on to form Titan Source: http:// www.thegeminigeek.com/wp-content/ uploads/2009/07/
Titans atmosphere is almost all nitrogen Titan's atmospheric composition in the stratosphere is 98.4% nitrogen with the remaining 1.6% composed mostly of methane (1.4%) and hydrogen (0.1 0.2%) One of Titan's great mysteries is the source of its methane. Researchers suspect methane could be belched into Titan's atmosphere by cryovolcanism, or volcanoes with water as lava. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/titan_(moon)
Titan's surface temperature is about 94 K ( 179.2 C) Water ice has an extremely low vapor pressure, so the little water vapor present appears limited to the stratosphere. Titan receives about 1% as much sunlight as Earth Source: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia20020 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/titan_(moon)
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/titan_(moon) Titan's surface is marked by broad regions of bright and dark terrain Titan has numerous of methane lakes and seas, and the two largest methane seas on Titan are: _ Kraken Mare (400000 km 2 ) _ Ligeia Mare (126000 km 2 ) Titan's nitrogen-rich atmosphere is twice as thick as Earth's, making it difficult for astronomical instruments to image its surface in the visible light spectrum
In 1907 Spanish astronomer Joseph Comas observed limb darkening of Titan, the first evidence that the body has an atmosphere The first probe to visit the Saturnian system was Pioneer 11 in 1979, which revealed that Titan was probably too cold to support life Voyager 1's trajectory was designed to provide an optimized Titan flyby, during which the spacecraft was able to determine the density, composition, and temperature of the atmosphere, and obtain a precise measurement of Titan's mass Source: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia01393 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/titan_(moon) Pioneer 11 Voyager 1 Saturn and its moon Titan picture from Pioneer 11 Night side of Titan picture from Voyager 1
Source: http://pics-about-space.com/cassini-spacecraft-art?p=3 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/titan_(moon) From NASA's Cassini spacecraft (launched to orbit around Saturn in 2005) we now know that Titan has lakes and seas of liquid methane (natural gas) and ethane near its pole The seabed may be covered in a sludge of carbon- and nitrogen-rich material, and its shores may be surrounded by wetlands Titan s lakes (dark spots) picture From Cassini Cassini
The Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) is proposed design for a lander to explore moon Titan TiME will be designed to float on the methane sea of Titan to study the chemical composition of the sea, and data back to earth. TiME destination will be the Ligeia Mare sea. The capsule will be launched to bring TiME to Titan in 2016 and it will reach Titan by 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/titan_mare_explorer
Since Titan consist of large amount of Methane (Natural Gas), Will Titan moon explode if it was hit by small object from outer space? Will Titan temperature become warmer in the future? Why scientist didn t consider Titan moon as a planet since it s size is almost similar to Mars?