The Biggest River Not On Earth

While the Nile is still the record holder for longest known river in the Solar System, we have a new champion for biggest body of liquid not on Earth.

Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon, has a river that measures about 200 miles in length. While that’s twenty times shorter than Earth’s longest river, the Titan river the largest body of liquid ever observed away from Earth. Here’s the catch.

Unlike Earth’s rivers, the Titan this river doesn’t flow with water. Instead swirling masses of hydrocarbons like methane and ethane flow through the river.

Titan is the largest of Saturn’s moons, and is the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere. It’s also the only object other than Earth to have known bodies of surface liquid.

Take a look at the river below, as taken by Cassini, NASA’s Saturn orbiting spacecraft.