Titan Tops Mercury in Width at 5,150 Km as Ganymede Leads by 2%
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 24
Titan Tops Mercury in Width at 5,150 Km as Ganymede Leads by 2%
1 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 24
Summary
Titan spans about 5,150 kilometers across, making Saturn’s largest moon wider than Mercury and the solar system’s second-largest moon after Ganymede.
Mercury still outweighs Titan by a wide margin—Titan has only about 40% of Mercury’s mass—because Mercury is dense metal and rock while Titan is roughly half water ice.
1.47 times Earth’s surface pressure gives Titan the only thick atmosphere of any moon, composed of about 95% nitrogen and roughly 5% methane.
Minus 179C surface temperatures let methane and ethane remain liquid, making Titan the only world besides Earth known to have stable surface liquids.
Cassini-Huygens found rivers, lakes, seas and evidence of a subsurface ocean on Titan, underscoring how a moon can function like a planet-sized world.