VIDEO: Submarine will explore seas of Saturn’s moon

By AG Staff October 20, 2015
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The NASA concept submarine is designed to explore methane lakes on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.

DESIGNS FOR A space-travelling submarine have been developed at NASA, with the purpose of exploring the methane and ethane lakes on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.

Aside from Earth, Titan is the only other moon or planet in our Solar System with surface lakes and seas; the difference is that Titan’s are made of liquid hydrocarbons, with temperatures below -180°C.

The submarine was presented to NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium earlier this year. It is designed to travel to Titan’s largest sea, Kraken Mare, to gather data about extraterrestrial seas, including chemical composition, currents and tides. 

The Titan submarine is still at concept stage, awaiting selection from NASA for further development.

Read about the exploration of seas on moons in #129 of Australian Geographic.