Cassini Investigates Titan’s Chemical Factory

Saturn's giant moon Titan hides behind a thick, smoggy atmosphere that's well known to scientists as one of the most complex chemical environments in the solar system. It's a productive "factory" cranking out hydrocarbons that rain down on Titan's icy surface and cloak it in soot. With a brutally cold surface temperature of around minus 270 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 170 degrees Celsius), the hydrocarbons form lakes of liquid methane and ethane. 

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-116&cid=release_2012-116