---
title: "Titan: facts, distance and size – Krillion Space"
description: "Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the second-largest moon in the solar system, wrapped in a thick nitrogen haze. Size, distance and sourced facts."
url: https://krilion.app/atlas/titan
language: en-US
---

# Titan

Hazy moon. Depth 9 on the Krillion Space voyage, in the Outer Sol.

Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the second-largest moon in the solar system, wrapped in a thick nitrogen haze. It is the only moon with a substantial atmosphere and the only place besides Earth known to have liquid on its surface, in the form of methane and ethane rivers, lakes and seas.

![Titan at depth 9 in Krillion Space, mapped with Cassini images (NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona).](https://krilion.app/assets/atlas/titan.webp)

## Fact sheet

- **Type:** Moon
- **Moon of:** Saturn
- **Distance:** About 1.2 million km (759,000 miles) from Saturn; Saturn orbits about 1.4 billion km (886 million miles), or 9.5 AU, from the Sun
- **Size:** Diameter about 5,150 km (3,200 miles), nearly 50% wider than Earth's Moon
- **Discovered:** Discovered 25 March 1655 by Christiaan Huygens
- **On the voyage:** Depth 9, in the Outer Sol section of the route, between Enceladus and Uranus

## Things to know

- Titan's air is about 95% nitrogen and 5% methane, and the pressure at its surface is about 60% higher than at sea level on Earth. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/titan/facts/))
- The surface sits at about -179°C (-290°F), cold enough for methane and ethane to rain down and pool as liquid. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/titan/facts/))
- Gravity measurements by Cassini point to a global ocean of salty liquid water hidden about 55 to 80 km (35 to 50 miles) beneath the icy crust. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/titan/facts/))
- On 14 January 2005, ESA's Huygens probe touched down on Titan, the first landing ever made in the outer solar system. ([ESA](https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens/Europe_reaches_new_frontier_Huygens_lands_on_Titan))
- NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft is set to launch no earlier than July 2028 and reach Titan in late 2034 to fly between sites and study prebiotic chemistry. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dragonfly/))

## Missions

Pioneer 11 flew through the Saturn system in 1979, Voyager 1 passed in 1980, the NASA-ESA-ASI Cassini-Huygens mission studied Titan from 2004 to 2017 and landed the Huygens probe in 2005, and NASA's Dragonfly is planned to launch in 2028.

## Sources

- [NASA – Titan Facts](https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/titan/facts/)
- [NSSDC – Saturnian Satellite Fact Sheet](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/saturniansatfact.html)
- [ESA – Huygens lands on Titan](https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens/Europe_reaches_new_frontier_Huygens_lands_on_Titan)
- [NASA – Dragonfly mission](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dragonfly/)

## On the route

- Previous landmark: [Enceladus](https://krilion.app/atlas/enceladus)
- Next landmark: [Uranus](https://krilion.app/atlas/uranus)
- [The whole Star Atlas](https://krilion.app/atlas)
- [Fly the voyage yourself](https://krilion.app/d/): every right answer warps your ship one stop deeper.