Titan in front of Saturn. Image:[ Cassini/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia14922.html)

Not to anthropomorphize too much, but NASA's Cassini probe has got it good: It's cruising to the solar system's most beautiful planet to coast by its only other known sea. While it sounds like a vacation compared to, say, the [New Horizons mission](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html), which is spending nearly a decade to go visit a frozen not-planet, Cassini is still sending back unprecedented and fascinating data on Saturn and its moons, especially Titan.

Case in point, yesterday morning Cassini completed a low fly-over of Titan, wherein the probe bounced radio signals off the moon's surface to a radio telescope array a billion miles away in Australia. According to NASA, the experiment was known as a &#x201c;Titan occultation,&#x201d; and was designed to provide information on how temperatures vary by altitude in Titan&#x2019;s atmosphere, including looking at Titan's own winter polar vortex.

Titan's atmosphere is just one of the reasons it's attracting NASA's attention. Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system, and is the only body, apart from Earth, known to have liquid seas on its surface. Given the surface temperature on Titan, it's safe to say that they aren't seas of liquid water though. Scientists suppose they're probably liquid methane or ethane, but they're not sure.

This colorized movie from NASA's Cassini mission takes viewers over the largest seas and lakes on Saturn's moon Titan.  The movie is made from radar data received during multiple flyovers of Titan from 2004 to 2013.  
More:

This colorized movie from NASA's Cassini mission shows the most complete view yet of Titan's northern land of lakes and seas. Saturn's moon Titan is the only world in our solar system other than Earth that has stable liquid on its surface. The liquid in Titan's lakes and seas is mostly methane and ethane.

The data were obtained by Cassini's radar instrument from 2004 to 2013. In this projection, the north pole is at the center. The view extends down to 50 degrees north latitude. In this color scheme, liquids appear blue and black depending on the way the radar bounced off the surface. Land areas appear yellow to white. A haze was added to simulate the Titan atmosphere.

Kraken Mare, Titan's largest sea, is the body in black and blue that sprawls from just below and to the right of the north pole down to the bottom right. Ligeia Mare, Titan's second largest sea, is a nearly heart-shaped body to the left and above the north pole. Punga Mare is just below the north pole.

The area above and to the left of the north pole is dotted with smaller lakes. Lakes in this area are about 30 miles (50 kilometers) across or less.

Unannotated versions of this video are available at this site: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/animation/PIA17656

Most of the bodies of liquid on Titan occur in the northern hemisphere. In fact nearly all the lakes and seas on Titan fall into a box covering about 600 by 1,100 miles (900 by 1,800 kilometers). Only 3 percent of the liquid at Titan falls outside of this area.

Scientists are trying to identify the geologic processes that are creating large depressions capable of holding major seas in this limited area. A prime suspect is regional extension of the crust, which on Earth leads to the formation of faults creating alternating basins and roughly parallel mountain ranges. This process has shaped the Basin and Range province of the western United States, and during the period of cooler climate 13,000 years ago much of the present state of Nevada was flooded with Lake Lahontan, which (though smaller) bears a strong resemblance to the region of closely packed seas on Titan.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini.

Soaring Over Titan: Extraterrestrial Land of Lakes

"There is no really direct measurement that tells us what they are exactly," Essam Marouf, a member of the Cassini radio science team, [told the _Los Angeles Times_](http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cassini-titan-20140618-story.html). "If the data from this morning is good enough, it will tell us what these liquids really are."

NASA has been experimenting with recreating Titan's smoggy-looking atmosphere here on Earth, which, [according to planetary scientist Melissa Trainer](http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-experiments-recreate-aromatic-flavors-of-titan/), allows us to say &#x201c;that this material has a strong aromatic character.&#x201d;

During its closest approach from Tuesday night until Wednesday morning, the spacecraft was supposed to be [just 2,274 miles above Titan's surface, going 13](http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/cassini/titan-20140617/) [,000 miles per hour.](http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/cassini/titan-20140617/) Marouf said they couldn't analyze the data in real-time, but that the maneuver was successful and the results be revealed in the Netherlands next week.

Cassini's going to [keep doing flyovers of the moon too](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/timeline/index.html#.U6MI0S8WeqM). Yesterday's maneuver was called T-102; T-101 was on May 17, and T-103 will happen on July 20. The last one scheduled for this year is T-107, scheduled for December 7.

Motherboard

Space

Tech

The probe is sea-side by the only known extraterrestrial surface sea in the solar system.

FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

The Cassini Satellite Probed the Polar Vortex on Saturn's Moon Titan

Titan in front of Saturn. Image: Cassini/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

The Cassini Satellite Probed the Polar Vortex on Saturn's Moon Titan

Titan in front of Saturn. Image: Cassini/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

ONE EMAIL. ONE STORY. EVERY WEEK. SIGN UP FOR THE VICE NEWSLETTER.