Titan's Vast, Fireproof Hydrocarbon Seas
TL;DR Summary
New analysis of Cassini-Huygens data shows Titan's northern seas Kraken Mare, Ligeia Mare, and Punga Mare hold tens of thousands of cubic kilometers of liquid methane and ethane—far more hydrocarbon fuel than Earth's proven reserves—yet the atmosphere is almost completely devoid of oxygen, so nothing on Titan can burn; even lightning would not ignite the fuel, though Titan maintains a methane-based weather cycle, complete with rainfall and rivers; the Huygens probe landed in 2005 and future Dragonfly missions will explore Titan further.
- Titan holds hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than every known oil and gas reserve on Earth combined, yet you couldn't light a single drop — its air is nitrogen and methane, with almost no oxygen, so a campfire is physically impossible Space Daily
- Titan has rivers, rainfall, lakes and a slow hydrological cycle exactly like Earth's, except that every drop of it is liquid methane and the rock the rivers run over is water ice Space Daily
- On Titan the mountains are made of water — frozen so hard at nearly minus 180 degrees that it behaves like rock, while the seas are liquid natural gas and the black beaches are soot drifting down from the sky Space Daily
- The rivers on Titan flow, pool into lakes and are fed by rainfall on a slow cycle much like our own, but the liquid is methane and the ground beneath it is water frozen hard as stone Space Daily
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