Saturn's Moon Titan May Have Subsurface Ocean Of Hydrocarbons

Hydrocarbons are the only materials on Titan's surface that would remain liquid at minus180 degrees Celsius, the average temperature of the moon's surface. Any water would be frozen, making it plausible that instead of groundwater, Titan would have the equivalent in hydrocarbons.

"While some asymmetry is expected from Saturn's gravitational pull, there is obviously something going on that causes Titan to have a different shape than expected," Zebker said.

"The things that we would expect to exist on the surface of Titan would either be solid hydrocarbon materials, essentially frozen ethane and methane, and that is fairly light, and then frozen water ice, which is denser," Zebker said. "If the mountains are composed of water ice and the plain features in between are composed of these solid hydrocarbons, that could lead to this kind of a situation."