NASA Cassini: Clues about Saturn's moon Titan

This coloured mosaic from NASA's Cassini mission shows the most complete view yet of Titan's northern land of lakes and seas. 

Saturn's moon Titan is the only world in our solar system other than Earth that has stable liquid on its surface. 

The liquid in Titan's lakes and seas is mostly methane and ethane. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/USGS

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is providing scientists with key clues about Saturn's moon Titan, and in particular, its hydrocarbon lakes and seas.

Titan is one of the most Earth-like places in the solar system, and the only place other than our planet that has stable liquid on its surface.

Cassini's recent close flybys are bringing into sharper focus a region in Titan's northern hemisphere that sparkles with almost all of the moon's seas and lakes.

Scientists working with the spacecraft's radar instrument have put together the most detailed multi-image mosaic of that region to date.

The image includes all the seas and most of the major lakes. Some of the flybys tracked over areas that previously were seen at a different angle, so researchers have been able to create a flyover of the area around Titan's largest and second largest seas, known as Kraken Mare and Ligeia Mare, respectively, and some of the nearby lakes.

"Learning about surface features like lakes and seas helps us to understand how Titan's liquids, solids and gases interact to make it so Earth-like," said Steve Wall, acting radar team lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"While these two worlds aren't exactly the same, it shows us more and more Earth-like processes as we get new views."