Of all the alien worlds in our solar system, one in particular resembles our home planet. Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is the only other place we know of where you could walk along the seashore or stand in the rain.
However, Titan’s exotic seas and its oily raindrops are not made of water, but of the natural gases methane and ethane, super-chilled into liquid form.
Now, the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed a crucial, missing step in how ethane is formed—and its discovery could tell us about the future of Titan’s atmosphere.
