The Moon Full of Methane Lakes

“Byeol-i, why does that moon look so foggy, like it’s covered in mist?”

“That’s Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. It’s completely wrapped in a thick atmosphere, so you can’t see its surface at all.”

“A thick atmosphere? Like Earth’s?”

“Exactly, actually Titan is the only moon in the whole solar system with a real thick atmosphere like Earth’s.”

“So what’s hiding inside all that fog?”

“Amazingly, Titan’s surface has real lakes and seas.”

“Lakes? Made of water?”

“No, not water, lakes made of liquid methane and ethane. Titan is so cold, about minus 179 degrees Celsius, that water freezes as hard as rock, so instead it’s methane that flows there as a liquid.”

“Methane lakes, that’s hard to even imagine.”

“Spacecraft have actually taken radar photos showing lakes, rivers, and even coastlines that look remarkably similar to Earth’s, except what’s flowing through them is methane instead of water.”

“Does it rain on Titan too?”

“Believe it or not, yes! Titan has methane clouds in its sky, and methane rain falls from them. That rain becomes rivers, flows into lakes, and evaporates back into clouds, almost exactly like Earth’s water cycle, just running on methane instead.”

“So it’s basically like Earth, just with different ingredients.”

“Exactly. That’s why scientists find Titan so special. If such unusual chemistry can happen there, maybe some completely different form of life, based on methane instead of water, could exist too.”

“Life that runs on methane, could that really be out there?”

“Nobody knows yet. That’s exactly what makes it so exciting to wonder about, and why we want to go take a closer look.”

“Could we actually go there ourselves someday?”

“Actually, there’s already a real plan. A drone spacecraft called Dragonfly is going to fly around and explore different spots on Titan’s surface directly. It’ll be the first flying exploration spacecraft to hop between multiple locations on another world, kind of like a helicopter.”

“A drone flying through Titan’s sky? That’s so cool.”

Hyeongseop stared at the hazy orange moon for a long while. Somewhere in all that fog, methane rain was falling, methane rivers were flowing, and someday, a little drone would be flying over it all. Just imagining it made his heart race.