River spotted on Saturn's largest moon

Dan Vergano USA TODAY @dvergano

Dec. 12, 2012, 12:37 p.m. ET

A "river" spotted on the surface of Saturn's moon, Titan, that runs into a sea (bottom half of picture) on the moon.

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, sports a 250-mile-long river, revealed by spacecraft fly-overs.

International Cassini spacecraft images reported by mission scientists show that the frozen moon's river arises from hilly headwaters to fill a lake, most likely made of liquid methane.

"It is the first time images have revealed a river system this vast and in such high resolution anywhere beyond Earth,' says an ESA statement.

The river valley crosses Titan's north polar region and runs into Kraken Mare, one of the three great seas in the high northern latitudes of the moon.

The Cassini mission arrived in 2004 at Titan, a haze-shrouded moon of Saturn some 3,200 miles wide. Crusted with hydrocarbon ice and laced with lakes of liquid methane and ethane, Titan's thick atmosphere has enticed scientists who view it as an example of conditions at the dawn of the solar system.

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