14 DAY TRIAL // A new photograph of Ligeia Mare depicts the landscape feature in beautiful colors that remind us of Earth. Yet, the sea is located on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and is filled with liquid hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane, rather than water.
Even so, Titan and Earth are not that different. Granted, atmospheric compositions and average temperature levels vary greatly, but all the building blocks of life are present on both worlds. Scientists say that we don't always have to look very far away in order to see worlds like our own, Wired reports.
“It has a liquid which erodes channels, an atmosphere, a hydrologic cycle, and many other parallels,” California Institute of Technology planetary scientist Oded Aharonson says of the Saturnine moon. The outlines of Ligeia Mare, as seen here, are a wonderful example of this.
Located at Titan's northern high latitudes, the landscape feature is greater than Lake Superior, and is considered to be the largest lake on the moon. The dataset on which this photo was based was collected by the NASA Cassini spacecraft.