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2nd Largest Moon
By: Sandra Kasson
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Discovered March 25, 1655 by Christiaan
Huygens.
Inspired by Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s four
largest moons in 1610.
Also inspired by the improvement of telescope
technology.
Christiaan, began building telescopes around 1650.
Discovered Titan with the first telescope he built.
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Christiaan was originally going to study the rings
around Saturn.
Was surprised to see that the planet had a very
large moon.
Largest moon of Saturn
Only moon with a dense atmosphere
Similar to our planet Earth
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Titan orbits Saturn once every 15 days and 22
hours.
Is tidally locked, meaning, Titan rotates once in
the same amount of time that it completes an
orbit around Saturn.
This rate of rotation keeps one side of Titan facing
Saturn at all times.
Orbits Saturn in the plane of the planets equator
sharing Saturn’s 26.7 degree tilt towards the
sun.
Titan experiences seasons in the course of it’s
year, which is 30 Earth-years long.
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Both Earth and Titan have an atmosphere
Have Clouds
They both have four elements of carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.
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Titan and Earth are miles apart but still have similar
features; wind, rain, volcanoes.
Titan looks more like Earth than any other body of the
solar system.
Titan gets about 1% of the amount of sunlight that Earth
gets.
Titan is the only moon in the Solar System to have a thick
atmosphere.
Is the only celestial body other than Earth to have stable
pools of liquid on its surface.
Water cannot exist on Titan except as deep-frozen ice as
strong as rock.
Methane takes the place of water in the cycle of
evaporation and precipitation (rain or snow).
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Titan’s 5,150 kilometer diameter is about 50%
larger than Earth’s moon.
Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a
significant atmosphere.
The atmosphere is thicker than Earth’s and
contains cloud layers and haze blocking Titan’s
surface.
The haze consists of hydrocarbon aerolsols, giving
Titan its orange color.
It extends about 600 kilometers above the
surface.
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Was thought to be the largest moon in the solar
system.
Measurements taken by Voyager 1 showed the thick
layer of haze.
The haze made it appear bigger than Genymede,
Jupiter’s largest moon.
Ganymede has a radius of 2,640 kilometers.
Without the atmosphere, Titan’s radius is 2,575
Kilometers.
The Cassini was the only space probe that was able to
break through Titan’s surface to take actual photo’s
of the moon.
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Hard to explore because of the thick haze.
Hydrocarbons that make up the atmosphere,
prevents a clear view of the surface.
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Saturni Luna, which is Latin for “Saturn’s Moon”
was not named Titan until 2 centuries later.
Was named by Sir John Herschel.
He chose the name Titan because it was the
brightest of moon of Saturn.