Lifting Titan’s Veil by Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton, Cambridge University Press, £19.95, ISBN 0521793483
TITAN is a freezing hostile world, larger than Mercury and Pluto. Some even call it the Mars of the outer Solar System because people are so fascinated by it. This Saturnian satellite has a dense nitrogen and methane atmosphere. The surface temperature is about −176 °C which is close to the “triple point” of methane. That means it can rain methane, and methane snow drifts over placid methane seas lapping the inner walls of giant impact craters. A dim red light bathes the landscape, and…
