Random Facts About Saturn's Moon Titan, Closest Thing We Have To A Second Earth (16 items)

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  (#12) It's Tidally Locked

  Titan is tidally locked to Saturn, constantly showing only one side of itself as it orbits at a distance of 759,000 miles. It takes 15 days and 22 hours for Titan to complete its journey around the massive planet, where it exists in orbital resonance with another one of Saturn’s moons, Hyperion.
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  (#3) It Doesn't Have A Magnetic Field

  A distinct difference between Titan and Earth is that Titan doesn’t have a significant magnetic field, if any at all. Instead, the moon exists at the edge of Saturn’s massive magnetosphere, where it's sometimes protected from, and sometimes exposed to, the sun's solar winds.
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  (#11) It Might Be Older Than Saturn

  Astronomers aren’t exactly sure how Titan formed, but it doesn't appear to be an amalgam of smaller remains like so many of Saturn’s other orbiting bodies. One theory suggests that Titan could actually be older than Saturn - a rarity for a moon’s relationship to its host planet.
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  (#8) It Might Have A Giant Subterranean Ocean

  Titan is thought to have a slightly slushy core comprised of rock and ice. But its inner body might also be encircled by a vast subterranean ocean. It’s fun to speculate what might exist in the depths below Titan’s icy surface but, with limited data, scientists can’t yet make detailed predictions about the hypothetical ocean.

  Still, the prospect of an underground body of water with volcanic activity raises some researchers' hopes for the potential of extraterrestrial life there.
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  (#14) It's Hard To Visit

  Titan is approximately 746 million miles away from Earth when the two bodies are at their closest. Compare that to Mars, which measured 34.8 million miles away at its record-setting closest point, and which humans are just now contemplating human travel to. In other words, travel to Titan presents something of an advanced engineering problem.

  To date, the fastest Earthlings have been able to get a lightweight probe to Titan’s locale is two years and four months, meaning that faster and more powerful engines will be necessary before humans can visit themselves.
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  (#15) Its Neighbors Are Fascinating Too

  Saturn has 62 known moons, though most are small. Still, moons like Enceladus, with its subterranean ocean and spewing geysers, are fascinating places that, like Titan, are also being studied as potentially life-harboring worlds.

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