
Posted: June 29, 2004
On top the windswept summit of a Hawaiian volcano, a NASA instrument attached to the Japanese Subaru telescope measured distant winds raging on a strange world -- Titan, the giant moon of Saturn...Titan, the second largest moon in the solar system, is larger than the planet Mercury and is the only known moon with a thick atmosphere, actually 1.5 times more dense than Earth's. Because it is far from the Sun, Titan is extremely cold (surface temperature of about minus 178 Celsius (minus 289 Fahrenheit), allowing a hydrocarbon rain that may form gasoline-like seas.