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NASA’s Cassini reveals surprises with Titan’s Lakes

This near-infrared, color view from Cassini shows the sun glinting off of Titan’s north polar seas.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho

On its final flyby of Saturn’s largest moon in 2017, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft gathered radar data revealing that the small liquid lakes in Titan’s northern hemisphere are surprisingly deep, perched atop hills and filled with methane.

The new findings, published April 15 in Nature Astronomy, are the first confirmation of just how deep some of Titan’s lakes are (more than 300 feet, or 100 meters) and of their composition. They provide new information about the way liquid methane rains on, evaporates from and seeps into Titan – the only planetary body in our solar system other than Earth known to have stable liquid on its surface.

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