By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Vienna
If worlds have shadow twins elsewhere in the Universe, then Earth's would appear to lie just a block or two down the cosmic road, in orbit around Saturn.
"We have on Titan many of the geological features that we find on Earth," enthuses Rosaly Lopes.
"We find volcanism, we find tectonics, we find erosion and deposition, and wind activity forming dunes.
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Dr Lopes, from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, is one of the scientists reviewing the Titan findings at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) meeting in Vienna, Europe's largest annual gathering of scientists studying the Earth, its climate and its cosmic neighbourhood.
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There may be 1,000 times more liquid hydrocarbons in Titan's lakes than in all the oil wells on Earth. Its dunes may hold hundreds of times the content of Earth's coal reserves.
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more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7350100.stm