Does it matter where on Titan you land?

Yes. Titan rates 32.6 out of 100 as a world, but that figure is identical everywhere on it. Sunlight, accessible water, radiation dose, surface temperature and the landform itself all vary with position, and across the named sites here they span roughly 6 points of difficulty.

How is the settlement difficulty of a site calculated?

Seven factors that genuinely vary across a surface: annual mean sunlight integrated over the orbit, distance to the latitudes where that body holds ice, radiation geometry inside any magnetosphere, equilibrium temperature at that latitude, what the IAU landform class implies about landing and building, line of sight to Earth on a tidally locked world, and distance to a place a spacecraft has already landed. Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are constant across a body and are counted in the world's own index instead.

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The most viable places on Titan

Q: What is the best place to land on Titan?

Of the 304 named places on Titan, Xuttah Planitia scores best at 30.6 out of 100 — 2 points easier than the median site. Sunlight: 98% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets. The ranking is computed from each site's own latitude, longitude and landform class, not assigned.

All 304 named places on Titan, scored one coordinate at a time on sunlight, water, radiation, temperature, ground and access — then ranked. Xuttah Planitia comes out first.

Titan as a whole rates 32.6/100 to settle, and that single number is the same for every square metre of it. It is also the wrong number for a mission, because sunlight, water, radiation dose and the ground itself all change with where you stand. The ranking below re-asks the question at each of 304 catalogued coordinates and reports the difference from the median site — so a score of 32.6 here means “typical for Titan”, not “good”.

Water on Titan: The liquid methane and ethane seas are polar. Water ice is the bedrock everywhere, but at 94 K it behaves like rock.

Ground truth: 1 spacecraft has landed on Titan, and proximity to one counts toward a site's score — known bearing strength and slopes are worth real risk reduction.

1Xuttah PlanitiaPlanitia11° N, 168° W18 km30.6-2

Sunlight: 98% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

2Shangri LaAlbedo Feature10° S, 165° W30.8-1.8

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

3Shikoku FaculaFacula10° S, 164° W285 km31-1.6

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

4Chusuk PlanitiaPlanitia5° S, 24° W125 km31.1-1.5

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

5Mindanao FaculaFacula7° S, 174° W210 km31.2-1.4

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

6Giedi PlanitiaPlanitia5° N, 3° E303 km31.2-1.4

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

7Nicobar FaculaeFacula2° N, 159° W575 km31.4-1.2

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

8Oahu FaculaFacula5° N, 167° W465 km31.4-1.2

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

9Kerguelen FaculaFacula5° S, 151° W135 km31.5-1.1

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

10Texel FaculaFacula12° S, 177° E190 km31.5-1.1

Sunlight: 98% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

11Santorini FaculaFacula2° N, 146° W140 km31.6-1

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

12Antilia FaculaeFacula11° S, 173° E260 km31.6-1

Sunlight: 98% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

13IhiCrater8° S, 165° W42 km31.6-1

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

14Tasmania FaculaFacula10° N, 167° W26 km31.6-1

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

15DilmunAlbedo Feature15° N, 175° W31.6-1

Sunlight: 97% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

16Crete FaculaFacula9° N, 150° W680 km31.7-0.9

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

17Caladan PlanitiaPlanitia31° N, 134° E2,800 km31.7-0.9

Ground: Flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

18AdiriAlbedo Feature10° S, 150° E31.7-0.9

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

19Tortola FaculaFacula9° N, 143° W65 km31.7-0.9

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

20Vis FaculaFacula7° N, 138° W215 km31.7-0.9

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

21Buzzell PlanitiaPlanitia66° S, 97° E870 km31.8-0.8

Ground: Flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across · Temperature: About -180 °C mean at this latitude

22BeletAlbedo Feature5° S, 105° E31.9-0.7

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

23XanaduAlbedo Feature15° S, 100° W3,400 km32-0.6

Sunlight: 97% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

24Tollan TerraTerra6° N, 37° E800 km32-0.6

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

25Tsiipiya TerraTerra3° N, 20° E573 km32-0.6

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

26Ahmakiq UndaeUnda2° N, 157° E812 km32-0.6

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

27Rossak PlanitiaPlanitia71° S, 5° E512 km32-0.6

Ground: Flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across · Temperature: About -180 °C mean at this latitude

28Tui RegioRegio25° S, 125° W1,200 km32-0.6

Sunlight: 92% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

29FensalAlbedo Feature5° N, 30° W32-0.6

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

30Concordia RegioRegio20° S, 119° E1,500 km32-0.6

Sunlight: 95% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

31QuiviraAlbedo Feature0° N, 15° W32-0.6

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

32SenkyoAlbedo Feature5° S, 40° E32.1-0.5

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

33Arrakis PlanitiaPlanitia78° S, 117° W337 km32.1-0.5

Ground: Flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across · Temperature: About -180 °C mean at this latitude

34Eurus UndaeUnda8° S, 150° E220 km32.1-0.5

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

35Ochumare RegioRegio10° N, 12° E939 km32.1-0.5

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

36AztlanAlbedo Feature10° S, 20° W32.1-0.5

Sunlight: 99% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

37Paititi TerraTerra20° N, 111° E2,100 km32.1-0.5

Sunlight: 95% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

38Kraken MareMare68° N, 50° E1,170 km32.1-0.5

Ground: Flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across · Temperature: About -180 °C mean at this latitude

39Boreas UndaeUnda6° S, 145° E260 km32.1-0.5

Sunlight: 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

40Garotman TerraTerra14° S, 12° E970 km32.1-0.5

Sunlight: 98% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Titan gets · Temperature: About -179 °C mean at this latitude

What this ranking cannot see

Elevation. Every score above comes from a latitude, a longitude and a feature class — never from a terrain model — so slope, local shadowing and the polar peaks of eternal light are invisible to it. That last one matters: on a world tilted barely a degree, a ridge top near the pole can catch sunlight almost continuously while a crater floor a few kilometres away has not seen the Sun in two billion years. This model scores the average surface at a latitude, so it reads poles as dark and ranks them accordingly. Where a real mission targets a pole, that is usually the reason — and the reason to read this as one input, not a verdict.

Titan in 3D Every named place on Titan