How much do you really know about Titan

Titan: Saturn's Largest Moon

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and is larger than any of the dwarf planets of the Solar System.
It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere and is the only known object in space other than Earth on which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found.
Titan is primarily composed of ice and rocky material, which is likely differentiated into a rocky core surrounded by various layers of ice, including a crust of ice Ih and a subsurface layer of ammonia-rich liquid water.
The atmosphere of Titan is largely nitrogen, and minor components lead to the formation of methane and ethane clouds and heavy organonitrogen haze.
With its liquids (both surface and subsurface) and robust nitrogen atmosphere, Titan's methane cycle bears a striking similarity to Earth's water cycle, albeit at the much lower temperature of about 94 K (−179 °C; −290 °F).
Titan was discovered on March 25, 1655, by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens.
Titan's diameter and mass are similar to those of the Jovian moons Ganymede and Callisto.
Titan is probably partially differentiated into distinct layers with a 3,400-kilometer (2,100 mi) rocky center.
The moons of Jupiter and Saturn are thought to have formed through co-accretion, a similar process to that believed to have formed the planets in the Solar System.
Titan's atmospheric composition is nitrogen (97%), methane (2.7±0.1%), and hydrogen (0.1–0.2%), with trace amounts of other gases.
Titan's surface temperature is about 94 K (−179.2 °C), and atmospheric methane creates a greenhouse effect on Titan's surface.
The surface of Titan has geological features such as mountains, cryovolcanoes, dunes, rivers, lakes, seas, and deltas, and is generally smooth with few impact craters.Titan's Surface Features: Lakes, Impact Craters, Cryovolcanism, and Mountains
Titan's surface is between 100 million and 1 billion years old and has been reshaped by geological processes.
Titan's atmosphere is four times as thick as Earth's, making it difficult for instruments to image its surface in visible light.
Cassini spacecraft used infrared instruments, radar altimetry, and SAR imaging to map portions of Titan during its close flybys.
Titan's surface features include volcanic areas, windblown particle streaks, and relatively smooth surfaces.
There are broad regions of bright and dark terrain, including Xanadu, a large, reflective equatorial area about the size of Australia.
Titan has hydrocarbon lakes and seas, which were first suggested based on Voyager 1 and 2 data in 1995 and later confirmed by Cassini in 2006.
Lakes and seas on Titan are almost certainly hydrocarbon-based and the first stable bodies of surface liquid found outside Earth.
Vid Flumina channels are the first direct evidence of the presence of liquid channels on Titan and the first observation of hundred-meter deep canyons on Titan.
Titan's surface has few impact craters, and all show some indication of modification, suggesting infill from various geological processes.
Scientists have speculated that Titan's conditions resemble those of early Earth, though at a much lower temperature.
A mountain range measuring 150 kilometers long, 30 kilometers wide, and 1.5 kilometers high was discovered by Cassini in 2006.
Jeffrey Moore proposed an alternate view of Titan's geology, suggesting that Titan is a geologically dead world shaped by exogenic processes.Geology and Exploration of Titan
Titan's mountainous ridges may be the result of large multi-ring impact structures or the global contraction due to the slow cooling of the interior.
Titan may have an internal ocean made of eutectic water-ammonia mixture with a temperature of 176 K.
Structures resembling lava flows were found in a region of Titan called Hotei Arcus.
Sotra Patera is the most compelling possible cryovolcano yet found on Titan.
Crater-like landforms possibly formed via explosive, maar-like or caldera-forming cryovolcanic eruptions have been identified in Titan's polar regions.
Most of Titan's highest peaks occur near its equator in so-called "ridge belts".
The tallest mountain on Titan is located in the Mithrim Montes range, it is 3,337 m tall.
The sand on Titan might have formed when liquid methane rained and eroded the water-ice bedrock or from organic solids called tholins.
Observations of Titan prior to the space age were limited, and in 1944 Gerard P. Kuiper used a spectroscopic technique to detect an atmosphere of methane.
The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft reached Saturn on July 1, 2004, and began the process of mapping Titan's surface by radar.
The Huygens probe landed just off the easternmost tip of a bright region now called Adiri.
The Dragonfly mission, developed and operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, will launch in June 2027, and consists of a large drone powered by an RTG to fly in the atmosphere of Titan.The Potential for Life on Saturn's Moon, Titan
TALISE is a proposed probe that would be equipped with its own propulsion system and would not be limited to drifting on the lake when it splashes down.
The JET is a proposed astrobiology Saturn orbiter that would assess the habitability potential of Enceladus and Titan.
In 2015, NASA awarded a Phase II grant to a design study of a Titan Submarine to explore the seas of Titan.
Titan contains a global ocean beneath its ice shell, and within this ocean, conditions are potentially suitable for microbial life.
The Miller–Urey experiment and several following experiments have shown that with an atmosphere similar to that of Titan and the addition of UV radiation, complex molecules and polymer substances like tholins can be generated.
When energy was applied to a combination of gases like those in Titan's atmosphere, five nucleotide bases, the building blocks of DNA and RNA, were among the many compounds produced.
On July 28, 2017, scientists reported that acrylonitrile, or vinyl cyanide, (C2H3CN), possibly essential for life by being related to cell membrane and vesicle structure formation, had been found on Titan.
Laboratory simulations have led to the suggestion that enough organic material exists on Titan to start a chemical evolution analogous to what is thought to have started life on Earth.
It has been speculated that life could exist in the lakes of liquid methane on Titan, just as organisms on Earth live in water.
Despite these biological possibilities, there are formidable obstacles to life on Titan, and any analogy to Earth is inexact.
Calculations indicate that microbe-laden rock fragments that escape Earth's gravity could encounter Titan, suggesting the possibility of panspermia.
Conditions on Titan could become far more habitable in the far future as the Sun becomes a red giant, its surface temperature could rise enough for Titan to support liquid water on its surface.