Today, I Learned About The Largest Known Lake
You probably think that it is The Caspian Sea?
The largest known lake is bigger than The Caspian Sea and it is called Kraken Mare. It is one of the lakes on Titan - one of Saturn's moons. Its covers the area of about 400,000 km². It is not made of water but entirely filled with different hydrocarbons, mostly methane. Titan's lakes are also the only known extraterrestrial lakes. Kraken Mare means "The Sea of Kraken". The Kraken is a frightening sea monster in Nordic mythology.
[The color mosaic made from infrared data collected during NASA’s Cassini–Huygens mission. Image Source]
Titan was discovered in 1655 by the famous Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens. It is very slightly larger than the planet Mercury and it is about 1,5 times larger than Earth's Moon. The temperature on it's surface reaches up −179.2 °C, and it is the only moon in the Solar System that has thick atmosphere - mostly made of nitrogen. Because of this, its atmosphere is able to create clouds, winds and rains, which then form geological features similar to those on Earth, such as dunes, rivers and lakes.
[Images captured from the radar instrument aboard NASA's Cassini–Huygens probe. Image Source]
Today, I learned!
Other sources used but not included under hyperlinks:
"Useless Information - Mike The Headless Chicken".
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-logic
Nice article, 2 questions.
#1 Can we swim in that lake?
#2 If it is larger than Mercury then why is it only called a moon and not a planet?
Thanks.
Must be a non smoking place.
Haha yeah but I guess that there is not much oxygen in the atmosphere hence low risk of explosion ;-)
ah so.
do people float well in a methane lake? Or sink fast?
That I don't know :-)
I will hold off on the holiday plan for now. But sure would be cool to see what if anything lives in it.
There have been plans to send another probe to look for lifeforms wich are not based on water.
Hydrocarbons = oil.
= U.S. invasion is a matter of time :-)
Great stuff!
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I always like to look Archimedes running around with no clothes all the time ... 😜
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