Mackay Lacus

Hydrocarbon lakes on Titan: Cassini radar image, 2006 showing Mackay Lacus at upper left.

Mackay Lacus is the seventh largest of a number of hydrocarbon seas and lakes found on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

The lake is composed of liquid methane and ethane,[1] and was detected in 2007 by the Cassini–Huygens space probe.

Mackay Lacus is located at coordinates 78.32°N and 97.53°W on Titan's globe and is 180 km in length.[2][note 1] It is named after Lake Mackay in Western Australia.[2]

Notes

  1. ↑ The USGS web site gives the size as a "diameter", but it is actually the length in the longest dimension.

References

  1. ↑ Coustenis, A.; Taylor, F. W. (21 July 2008). Titan: Exploring an Earthlike World. World Scientific. pp. 154–155. ISBN 978-981-281-161-5.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Mackay Lacus". USGS planetary nomenclature page. USGS. Retrieved 2013-12-28.