Radar Study Puts Spotlight on Saturn Moon Titan’s Hydrocarbon Seas

Radar Study Puts Spotlight on Saturn Moon Titan’s Hydrocarbon Seas
Titan, Saturn's largest moon, appears in front of the ringed planet in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft in this handout released by NASA on Aug. 29, 2012. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Reuters
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WASHINGTON—NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which explored Saturn and its icy moons, including the majestic Titan, ended its mission with a death plunge into the giant ringed planet in 2017. But some of the voluminous data gathered by Cassini during its 13 years of surveying the Saturnian system is only now being fully examined.

Cassini’s radar observations are providing intriguing new details about the seas of liquid hydrocarbons on the surface of Titan, our solar system’s second-largest moon and a place of interest in the search for life beyond Earth.