"The Cassini spacecraft has spied the tallest mountains yet seen on Titan, Saturn's major moon.
The range is about 150km long (93 miles), 30km (19 miles) wide and about 1.5km (nearly a mile) high.
The feature was identified by the probe on a recent pass, using a combination of radar and infrared data.
Dr Bob Brown, one of the scientists behind the discovery, said it reminded him of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the western US.
"One could call them Titan's Sierras," the University of Arizona-Tucson researcher added.
The mountains lie south of the equator. Scientists told the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting that the range was probably as hard as rock, but made of icy materials.
The mountains appear to be coated with layers of organic, or carbon-rich, material. This could be methane "snow".
Impact story
Titan is smothered in a thick photochemical haze, so Cassini must use instruments other than its optical camera system to see features such as these mountains.
Dr Brown, who leads Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (Vims) team, said a theory was now emerging to explain how the range formed."
In related news, Iranian President Achmadinejad was quick to retort that since the Koran makes no mention of Saturn, or Titan, or mountains on either, the discovery must be viewed with the same scepticism as those evil Jews claiming there ever was a holocaust.
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