Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC
NASA recently published a radar image of Saturn's largest moon Titan,
acquired by the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft. The image shows a large dark
feature on Titan, believed to be a lake.
The image, which is cropped from a larger image, is compared to an image of
Lake Superior, on the right. It offers strong evidence of lakes filled with
liquid hydrocarbons, such as methane and ethane, on Titan.
This lake, 100,000 km2 in area, is considerably larger than Lake Superior (82,000 km2), one of Earth's largest lakes. Scientists even
classify it as a sea, as it covers a fraction of Titan (0.12%) larger than that
covered on Earth by the Black Sea (0.085%).
The image on the right is from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor
(SeaWiFS) project, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Further reading
Titan Viewed by Cassini's Radar
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09182
Methane lakes on Titan
http://www.bibalex.org/eclipse2006/News_Details.aspx?id=183
Aymen Mohamed Ibrahem
Senior Astronomy Specialist