Titan: Nasa say Saturn's biggest moon has Earth-like surface

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption, A picture of Titan taken by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft.

21 November 2019

Here on Earth we have one moon, whereas Saturn has an incredible 82!

The biggest of Saturn's moon is Titan, and US space agency Nasa say they've found it has an 'Earth-like terrain', or surface.

Scientists from NASA have drawn a global map of Titan using information gathered by the Cassini probe on its mission to Saturn.

It's is first ever complete map of Saturn's surface.

Image source, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Image caption, The map that NASA scientist have drawn showing all the exciting new things they have found on Titan!

Cassini took more than 100 fly-bys of Titan, zipping past the moon and collecting lots of data about it.

The data gave NASA scientists all the information they needed to map out just what was on the surface of Saturn's biggest moon.

How else is Titan similar to the Earth?

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption, Saturn with its many rings captured by Nasa

Earth and Titan are the only planetary bodies known to have stable liquid on their surfaces.

Unlike Earth, Titan doesn't have water in it's rain and clouds or filling its lakes.

If you cannot see the interactive activity on this page, click here.

Titan is very gaseous - the two gasses that we know are on the moon are methane and ethane.

They are actually called hydrocarbons and are gasses that act like liquids.

What do you think about the cool new discovery? Let us know in the comments.