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A Comparison of Titan & Pluto

The solar system contains many natural wonders -- most of which people are only beginning to understand. The vantage point of the Earth provides astronomers with some basic visuals, but since the latter half of the 20th century, satellites and rovers have provided far more information than what was ever previously known about the solar system. Two of the most well-known nonplanetary objects in space include Pluto and Titan.

Categorization
- Known even among the majority of schoolchildren, Pluto was once considered the ninth and smallest planet; however, in the new millennium Pluto suffered a setback. It was officially downgraded to a "dwarf planet" due to its lack of gravitational pull within its orbit. Titan, on the other hand, is a moon, orbiting the second largest planet in the solar system -- Saturn. Coincidentally, Titan also hails as the second largest moon in the solar system.
Sizes
- The sizes of the objects are relatively similar. Pluto -- the smaller of the two -- is only about 1,500 miles in diameter, making it roughly half the distance across the United States. Titan is roughly 3,200 miles in diameter, making it more than twice the size of Pluto.
Discovery and Exploration
- Titan dates all the way back to the 17th century when Christiaan Huygens -- a Dutch astronomer -- discovered it in 1655. Since then, because of its unusual characteristics, it has remained at the center of astronomers' attention, having played host to several exploration missions. The first spacecraft to explorer Titan was Voyager 1, which came within 2,500 miles of the moon; however, the Cassini spacecraft and Huygens Lander provided more detailed information about the planet. Pluto was discovered in 1930. Due to its distance, it has yet to have spacecraft explore its surface in detail.
Characteristics
- While Titan acts as a satellite around Saturn, Pluto has its own satellites. The largest moon is Charon, which is roughly half the size of Pluto. It also has two recently discovered smaller satellites, known as Nix and Hydra. Pluto's structure is thought to be relatively simple, a mixture of mostly rock and ice, much like a meteorite. Titan, however, contains an extremely thick atmosphere. One of the most unusual aspects of Titan is its lakes -- not composed of water, but of methane.

Astronomy