New Research Reveals How Titan's Atmosphere is Sustained

Laboratory experiments confirm that nitrogen and methane gases from Titan's interior replenish its dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere.

Saturn's moon Titan has a dense atmosphere composed of 95% nitrogen and 5% methane, a phenomenon that has puzzled scientists since its discovery in 1944.
Recent experiments by the Southwest Research Institute and Carnegie Institution for Science simulate Titan's interior conditions, showing that heating complex organic materials releases nitrogen and methane gases.
These gases seep to the surface, replenishing the atmosphere and preventing it from freezing over, as methane would otherwise be depleted by sunlight-driven reactions within 30 million years.
The findings are based on data from NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission, which explored the Saturn system from 2004 to 2017, and are published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
NASA's upcoming Dragonfly mission, set to launch in 2028, aims to further explore Titan's surface and investigate its potential habitability.