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Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second natural satellite of the solar system. NASA was of great interest because its dense atmosphere made it difficult to determine its surface. However, the climate, including wind and rain, creates features such as dunes, rivers, lakes and seas, suggesting many similarities to the Earth.
Professor Brian Cox revealed how NASA sent a probe exploring Titan in 1997 in its new BBC series "The Planets".
In the first episode aired May 28, he said: "Among all these moons, there is one that surpasses all others and that, in our opinion, may have the best chance of becoming a place we recognize.
"In the cold and distant regions of the solar system, behind Jupiter, around the icy planet of Saturn, gravitates around a jewel.
"Titan – a moon the size of a planet larger than Mercury, surrounded by a thick atmosphere of nitrogen and methane and whose surface remained a long time mysterious.
"The Huygens probe was our first chance to explore under the clouds and his camera sent back these early glimpses of the distant moon.
"Wonderfully, the craft made a soft landing and continued to retransmit what he saw."
Dr. Cox then waved a photo of Titan's surface and revealed how he had reached temperatures close to -200 ° C.
He explained: "It's a wonderful photograph and the more you know, the more wonderful it becomes.
"This is a photograph of the surface of the moon orbiting a planet more than a billion miles distant.
"So we installed a camera on the surface of a world and what you see here looks like a floodplain or a riverbed.
"These rocks have been smoothed and eroded by liquids and we know that they are actually blocks of frozen water.
"They are frozen because the temperature on the surface of this moon is -180 ° C."
However, Dr. Cox explained how, after further inspection, NASA scientists were surprised by what they discovered.
He added: "Huygens has detected a significant amount of methane – a flammable gas on Earth.
"But the relatively high atmospheric pressure and cold on Titan's surface means that this methane exists in liquid form.
"Titan could be wet, not with water, but liquid methane causing ice-like pieces of rock in mountain canals and flood plains.
"Huygen has only survived a few hours, but has not detected any trace of liquid methane at its landing site."
In the same series, Cox also revealed how NASA discovered a "secret" on the planet Mercury after sending their probe MESSENGER (Surface, Environment, Geochemistry and Telemetry Mercury) in 2004.
He said: "MESSENGER approached Mercury at such a speed that he was forced to fly over the planet three times, slowing down with each passing.
"After nearly seven years of flawless navigation, he has arrived safely in orbit.
"MESSENGER's mission is to map the surface of Mercury.
"He began to reveal the secrets of the most crazed planet of the solar system in exquisite new detail."
The probe also recorded chemical elements at concentrations never seen before.
Scientists did not expect to find these compositions on a planet so close to the sun today, as they evaporate easily.
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