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Which liquids may form lakes on Titan’s surface?
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Habitable zone
The habitable zones (green) for stars that are like the Sun (middle), hotter than the Sun (top), and cooler than the Sun (bottom). The red areas are those in which liquid surface water would be lost as a result of a runaway greenhouse effect, and the blue areas are those in which liquid surface water would be completely frozen.
Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is the only moon in the solar system known to possess liquid lakes on its surface. While the conventional definition of a "habitable zone" focuses on the presence of liquid water, Titan’s extremely cold surface temperature of approximately 94 K (−179 °C) allows for the existence of lakes composed of liquid hydrocarbons, specifically methane and ethane.12345
Data from the Cassini-Huygens mission confirmed that these lakes, primarily located in the north polar region, are filled with these liquid organic materials. These hydrocarbons play a role on Titan analogous to that of water on Earth, acting as the primary agents for erosion and surface sculpting through precipitation and flow.465