Stunning Nasa image reveals surface of Saturn's Titan moon - is it fit for human colonisation?

Nov 6, 2014

The image shows sunlight reflecting spectacularly off the surface of Saturn's largest moon where the surface is mainly composed of water, ice and rocky material

NASA

This is a stunning glimpse of oceans on what could be the only other world in our solar system fit for human colonisation.

Released by NASA, the image shows sunlight reflecting spectacularly off the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

The surface is mainly composed of water, ice and rocky material while its atmosphere is largely nitrogen.

Titan is the largest of Saturn’s 53 official moons, and is the second largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter’s Ganymede.

NASA Titan Mimicking the Moon
Impersonation: Titan mimicking the moon

This image of our solar system's 'most hospitable extraterrestrial world' was shot by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in late August.

In the past, the craft has captured separate images of the moon's huge polar seas, but this is the first time both have been seen together in the same view.

But the snap is not a photograph - instead it is an image comprised of ‘real colour information’, wavelengths the naked human eye cannot see.

The unaided eye would see nothing but haze.

NASA Titan Sunglint on a Hydrocarbon Lake
Spark: Titan sunglint on a hydrocarbon lake

The sun's glint appears in the image as the bright area near in the upper left of the image. This reflection is in the south of Titan's largest sea, Kraken Mare.

From the image, scientists understand that the sea was larger at some point in the past, but has since evaporated.

Cassini captured this image by flying by Titan and reveals the labyrinth of channels that connect Kraken Mare to another large sea, Ligeia Mare.

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NASA Titan Mimicking the Moon
NASA Titan Sunglint on a Hydrocarbon Lake
 
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