Titan (moon)
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest natural satellite in the Solar System. Discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, Titan is 50% larger than Earth’s moon and 80% more massive. The name Titan came from John Herschel in his 1847 publication Results of Astronomical Observations Made during the Years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope.
About Titan (moon) in brief
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest natural satellite in the Solar System. It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only known body in space, other than Earth, where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found. Discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, Titan is 50% larger than Earth’s moon and 80% more massive. The name Titan came from John Herschel in his 1847 publication Results of Astronomical Observations Made during the Years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope. In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age. Titan is officially numbered Saturn VI because after the 1789 discoveries the numbering scheme was frozen to avoid causing any more confusion. Numerous small moons have been discovered closer to Saturn since then. Titan orbits Saturn once every 15 days 22 hours. Like Earth’s Moon and many of the satellites of the giant planets, its rotational period is identical to its orbital period; Titan is tidally locked in a resonance with Saturn, and its rotation with the planet is permanently locked in rotation with one face of Saturn. Its orbital eccentricity is 0.288, and it is inclined 0. 348 degrees relative to the equator. Viewed from Earth, Titan reaches an angular distance of 20 radii from Saturn. From Titan’s surface, Saturn subtends an arc of 5. 09 degrees and, were it visible through the moon’s thick atmosphere, would appear 11.
4 times larger in the sky than the Moon from Earth. The atmosphere of Titan is largely nitrogen; minor components lead to the formation of methane and ethane clouds and heavy organonitrogen haze. The climate creates surface features similar to those of Earth, such as dunes, rivers, lakes, seas, and deltas, and is dominated by seasonal weather patterns as on Earth. Titan’s methane cycle bears a striking similarity to Earth’s water cycle, albeit at the much lower temperature of about 94 K. It was the sixth moon ever discovered, after Earth’sMoon and the Galilean moons of Jupiter. The small, irregularly shaped satellite is locked in an orbital resonance with Titan, which is based on chaotic models based on a chaotic evolution of the Hyperion from a chaotic planet. It was named after the mythological Titans, brothers and sisters of Cronus, the Greek Saturn. Other early epithets for Titan include \”Saturn’s ordinary satellite” and “Saturn I through V”. Titan is one of six gravitationally rounded moons from Saturn; it is the most distant from Saturn of those six. It is likely differentiated into a rocky core surrounded by various layers of ice, including a crust of ice Ih and a subsurface layer of ammonia-rich liquid water. The geologically young surface is generally smooth, with few impact craters, although mountains and several possible cryovolcanoes have been found in Titan.
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This page is based on the article Titan (moon) published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
