images

Titan surface

by

Walter B. Myers/Novapix

Reference

a-sat99-00306

Date

2009-02-12

It is not known what lies beneath Titan's obscuring haze.* What is known is that Titan's atmosphere is one-and-a-half times as dense as the Earth's at sea level, and its composition is roughly 90% nitrogen and 10% other complex molecules such as methane (compare this to the Earth's atmosphere which is 78% nitrogen and 20% oxygen). Sadly, Titan's thick haze would make it unlikely that a visitor to Titan's surface could look up into the sky and see Saturn itself, but what the heck.
* Since late 2004 much new is being learned about Saturn and its satellites due to the tremendous success of NASA's and ESA's ongoing Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn.