Titan is Saturn’s largest moon and has a dense nitrogen-rich atmosphere.
Titan is the second-largest moon in the Solar System, after Jupiter’s Ganymede, and is larger than the planet Mercury by diameter, although it has less mass. Its atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen, with methane and other hydrocarbons present in smaller amounts. It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere and stable bodies of liquid on its surface.
Titan’s lakes and seas are made of liquid methane and ethane rather than water. The Cassini spacecraft studied Saturn and its moons from 2004 to 2017, while the Huygens probe landed on Titan in 2005, providing the first landing in the outer Solar System.
Titan is often confused with Ganymede because Ganymede is the largest moon overall. Titan’s distinctive combination of atmospheric density, organic chemistry, and hydrocarbon weather makes it especially important in planetary science.