Titan (moon)

Titan (Ancient Greek: Τῑτάν)^[1] is Saturn's moon. It was found by Christiaan Huygens on 25 March 1655. Titan is a unique moon: it is the Solar System’s only moon to have an atmosphere.

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second largest in the Solar System.^[2] Titan is larger than the planet Mercury, but it has less mass. Its equatorial diameter (width at the equator) is 5,150 km.^[3][2][4] It orbits 1,221,865 km away from Saturn.^[3]

Titan is the only moon known to have an atmosphere and it is thicker than Earth’s. Humans could not breathe it: as it is very cold, and also poisonous. The air is made of nitrogen and methane. Titan is the only place in the Solar System, except Earth, that has lakes and much liquid on its surface. But the liquid is methane, not water.^[5][6]

1. ↑ Morwood J; Taylor J., eds. (2002). Pocket Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary. Oxford University Press. p. 365. ISBN 9780198605126.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Cox, Brian; Cohen, Andrew (2010). Wonders of the Solar System. HarperCollins. p. 94-95. ISBN 9780007386901.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Harvey, Samantha (2011-03-04). "NASA: Solar System Exploration: Planets: Saturn: Moons: Titan". NASA. Archived from the original on 2011-03-23. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
4. ↑ How it Works Book of Space. Imagine Publishing. 2010. p. 63. ISBN 9781906078829.
5. ↑ Stofan, E. R.; et al. (2007). "The lakes of Titan". Nature. 445 (7123): 61–64. doi:10.1038/nature05438. PMID 17203056. S2CID 4370622. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
6. ↑ Cox, Brian. "BBC: Science: Space: Solar System: Moons: Titan: Methane rain on Titan". BBC. Archived from the original (Video) on 2011-03-16. Retrieved 2011-03-13.