Titan

[elizabeth25]

Ok, really not sure where to post this.

I was watching a programme last night called How Earth made us, presented by Dr Iain Stewart. There was a part where he went diving to show you bubbles of methane rising from the bottom of the sea.
He then said that methane is 20 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide as a greenhouse gas. That got me thinking about Titan, Methane exists on Titan as a solid, liquid and gas, and also has a thick atmoshpere, so should'nt Titan be warm?
Why is Titan's temperature 93.7 K? Is it to do with the distance from the Sun?
Would be very happy if anyone could help me. :)

[Van Rijn]

Yes, Titan is nearly ten times as far from the sun as Earth, and receives far less sunlight.

[elizabeth25]

Does it not recieve any light reflected from the ice in Saturns rings? does that not give any heat to Titan?

[Romanus]

As already mentioned, Titan is simply too far from the Sun for insolation to have much of an effect, and its clouds reflect away a significant fraction of the heat that gets there (Titan's albedo is roughly comparable to Mars's). In fact, Titan's surface is slightly cooler than its upper atmosphere.

[Rhaedas]

Does it not recieve any light reflected from the ice in Saturns rings? does that not give any heat to Titan?

Here's a view of Titan using Celestia with both Saturn and the Sun in view. You can probably see why it's so cold.

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[Ronald Brak]

Besides being far from the sun, titan has a strong anti-greenhouse effect equal to about 40% of its greenhouse effect.

[eburacum45]

To reinforce what Rhaedas was saying in his post, the rings are edge on to Titan, so are almost completely invisible.

However the idea of getting extra heat fro a nearby ring system is an interesting one. It might just work somewhere in the universe, if not in this system.