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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41063
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think this is more of a stylistic choice. Personally I disagree with Galastel and would keep consistency of tense. The switch to present seems like the narrator is suddenly giving me a lecture rather than explaining a scene. If you think this passage

> This was due to the fact that, like Earth's moon, Titan's rotation was synchronous in its orbit. One side always faced the planet.

sounds awkward, it's probably because it's too wordy and exposition-y rather than a tense issue. You could probably just cut it. This

> It was late afternoon in Zubrin. The air was perfect and the breeze was light. The sky glowed with the brilliance of Saturn's exotic face, a face that hung almost directly overhead and moved very little. It was a spectacular sight when the climate shield was high.

sounds perfectly fine to me. Does the reader really need to know about Titan's synchronous orbit to appreciate the scene?

(Also, strictly speaking, no statement is universally true. There will come a time when Titan's orbit stops being synchronous. Your hypothetical readers then would find your present tense description of Titan rather jarring.)

Original score: 1