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Titan

File:Titan_in_true_color_by_Kevin_M._Gill.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Also known as Saturn VI

largest moon of Saturn

AI overview

Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the second-largest moon in our entire solar system. It matters because it has a thick atmosphere and liquid methane lakes, making it one of the most Earth-like and scientifically interesting places beyond our planet.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Radius
2574
Mass
134.518
Orbital period
15.945421
Image
Titan in true color by Kevin M. Gill.jpg
Show 11 more facts
Commons category
Titan (moon)
time of discovery or invention
1655-03-25
periapsis
1186680
apoapsis
1257060
density
1.8798
orbital eccentricity
0.0288
semi-major axis of an orbit
1221870
Commons gallery
Titan (moon)
albedo
0.22
surface gravity
1.354
temperature
93.7
Sources (8)

via Wikidata · CC0

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Article

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest in the Solar System. It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere—denser than Earth's—and is the only known object in the Solar System besides Earth with clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid. Titan is one of seven gravitationally rounded moons of Saturn and the second-most distant among them. Frequently described as a planet-like moon, Titan is 48.16% larger in diameter than Earth's Moon and 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter's Ganymede and is larger than Mercury; yet Titan is only 40% as massive as Mercury, because Mercury is mainly iron and rock while Titan is mostly ice, which is less dense.

Discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, Titan was the first known moon of Saturn and the sixth known planetary satellite (after Earth's moon and the four Galilean moons of Jupiter). Titan orbits Saturn at 20 Saturn radii or 1,200,000 km above Saturn's apparent surface. From Titan's surface, Saturn, disregarding its rings, subtends an arc of 5.09 degrees, rendering it more than ten times as large in Titan's sky as the Moon is in Earth's sky.

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