Lake-effect methane chills Titan - USATODAY.com

Lake-effect methane chills Titan - USATODAY.com: "By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
Think Minnesota gets cold?

Try Titan, another land of a thousand lakes. Saturn's haze-shrouded moon may be an exotic land of liquid methane lakes, NASA scientists reported Wednesday.

First spotted in July in a flyby by the international Cassini spacecraft, the lakes explain the clouds that cloak the mysterious Titan, researchers say. At minus 290 degrees on its surface, Titan's weather is a chilly replica of Earth's climate, with methane rains and rivers falling and flowing into the lakes, which evaporate once more to form the moon's clouds, says study lead author Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research in Rectortown, Va."