Saturn's largest moon has lakes of liquid methane

Titan.
(Image credit: NASA)

A new analysis of data provided by NASA's Cassini spacecraft has yielded some surprising results about Saturn's largest moon, Titan. As it turns out, the large lakes that dot parts of Titan's surface are home to not water but huge amounts of methane and ethane.

These hydrocarbons are more familiar to us in their gaseous form, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained. But on Titan, the temperatures are so cold that these gases have condensed into liquids — enough, in some cases, to fill lakes that are 300 feet deep.

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Shivani is the editorial assistant at TheWeek.com and has previously written for StreetEasy and Mic.com. A graduate of the physics and journalism departments at NYU, Shivani currently lives in Brooklyn and spends free time cooking, watching TV, and taking too many selfies.