Artist's Rendition: Titan

Saturn has over 60 moons—that we know of, but one of the most interesting is it's largest moon: Titan. Titan has lakes and rivers, just like the Earth. However, it's far too cold on Titan for water to exist in a liquid state. In fact, water is not only hard as rock on Titan, many of Titan's rocks and mountains are made of water ice. So, what flows in the rivers, and fills the lakes on Titan? On Earth it's a gas, known as natural gas: methane. Titan has a methane cycle very similar to Earth's water cycle. Liquid methane evaporates from rivers and lakes, forms methane clouds, and falls back to the ground as methane rain.

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science has developed a special program for learning about what Titan is like at it's surface, but it's not in a way you might expect. There's no series of slides with bullet points containing facts. Instead, it's an art lesson. Yes, an art lesson. While learning the basics of how to draw mountains, clouds, and and other features common on both Earth and Titan, you can learn about their composition, and why they occur on Titan.

Art Station Titan Show from DMNS on Vimeo.

Here's a video of Eddie Goldstein taking you through the Titan art process. All you need is a sheet of paper and a pencil, but if you have an orange paper, and both a dark and light writing utensil, that will work best. And don't worry if you're no artist. My Titan art came out better than I expected, and yours will too.

Titan art by Carmen Austin