Titan’s surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth

Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.

"Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material—it’s a giant factory of organic chemicals,"

“This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan.”

The dark dunes that run along the equator contain a volume of organics several hundred times larger than Earth's coal reserves

Proven reserves of natural gas on Earth total 130 thousand million tons, enough to provide 300 times the amount of energy the entire United States uses annually for residential heating, cooling and lighting. Dozens of Titan's lakes individually have the equivalent of at least this much energy in the form of methane and ethane.