This is what Titan Saturn's moon lakes look like – do not try to swim there – BGR

Nothing is better on a hot summer day than a jump in a calm lake. You just feel in harmony with nature when you swim in a natural water plan. Of course, there are fishmeal or something else that goes around, but it's the very nature of the man. The Titan, the moon of Saturn, is a place where you will not want to take a dip in the lake. That's because the lake would kill you deadly.

In memory of Cassini's revolutionary mission, NASA took the opportunity to highlight one of the most amazing images captured by the reliable spacecraft just before his death. The composite photo shows a massive collection of lakes and seas near Titan's North Pole. They look nice enough from above, but they certainly are not.

What you see in the picture above is Titan's liquid soaked landscape. The huge seas – Punga Mare, Ligeia Mare and Kraken Mare – are hundreds of kilometers away and the smaller ones are also important.

If it was liquid water, it would be a paradise, but it certainly is not the case. Instead of water, Titan focuses mainly on methane and ethane. The liquid bodies you see are actually collections of liquid ethane, with methane clouds overhanging the surface and a toxic atmosphere surrounding the entire planet.

"With its dense atmosphere, Titan has a methane cycle very close to the Earth's water cycle: evaporation, cloud formation, precipitation, surface runoff into rivers, and collection in lakes and seas," says NASA. It's an incredibly hostile planet, at least for life as we know it, but it's still an interesting place for scientists.

The simple fact is that we do not know the limits of life. We know what conditions have helped life on earth but we have already been wrong about what is needed to sustain life in the past. It was once thought that sunlight was an absolute must, but creatures found near deep vents, miles away from the sun's rays, proved that light was not required after all.

Could it be the same thing with water? Could life take root in a lake with ethane? Many scientists would say that it is not likely, but it is not impossible either. There is even the possibility that liquid water exists below the frozen surface of the planet, which could allow microorganisms to develop. We will not know unless we go, but it is not in the time set by NASA.

Image Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI