Recently in the Titan Category

The Voyager 1 flyby of Titan in 1980 gave a first glimpse of the chemical complexity of Titan's atmosphere, detecting many new molecules with the infrared spectrometer (IRIS). These included propane (C3H8) and propyne (CH3C2H), while the intermediate-sized C3Hx hydrocarbon (C3H6) was curiously absent. Using spectra from the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on Cassini, we show the first positive detection of propene (C3H6) in Titan's stratosphere (5-sigma significance), finally filling the three-decade gap in the chemical sequence.

Glimpses of the events that nurtured life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago are coming from an unlikely venue almost 1 billion miles away, according to the leader of an effort to understand Titan, one of the most unusual moons in the solar system.

Titan, the main satellite of Saturn, has an active cycle of methane in its troposphere. Among other evidence for a mechanism of evaporation at work on the ground, dry lakebeds have been discovered.

Antifreeze normally helps prevent freezing, but scientists find a common antifreeze compound that might exist on Saturn's largest moon Titan can get trapped within ice-like cages.