Image:Titan globe.jpg

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A mosaic of nine processed images recently acquired during Cassini's first very close flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on October 26, 2004, constitutes the most detailed full-disc view of the mysterious moon.

The view is centered on 15 degrees South latitude, and 156 degrees West longitude. Brightness variations across the surface and bright clouds near the south pole are easily seen.

The images that comprise the mosaic have been processed to reduce the effects of the atmosphere and to sharpen surface features. The mosaic has been trimmed to show only the illuminated surface and not the atmosphere above the edge of the moon. The Sun was behind Cassini so nearly the full disc is illuminated. Pixels scales of the composite images vary from 2 to 4 kilometers per pixel (1.2 to 2.5 miles per pixel).

Surface features are best seen near the centre of the disc, where the spacecraft is looking directly downwards; the contrast becomes progressively lower and surface features become fuzzier towards the outside, where the spacecraft is peering through haze, a circumstance that washes out surface features.

The brighter region on the right side and equatorial region is named Xanadu Regio. Scientists are actively debating what processes may have created the bizarre surface brightness patterns seen here. The images hint at a young surface with, no obvious craters. However, the exact nature of that activity, whether tectonic, wind-blown, fluvial, marine, or volcanic is still to be determined.

The dark area at the centre left of the image almost looks like a possible hydrocarbon "sea", complete with four large easily-identifiable "islands" and a "shoreline" running northeast to southwest; however, confirmation of this feature as liquid has yet to be made. Certainly, in its descent to Titan's surface, the Huygens probe made snapshots of some dark rivers, and it's possible that they ultimately flow into large dark areas like this one.

Another possibility is that Titan is a larger, air-swaddled version of its outer neighbour Iapetus, which likewise has sharply contrasting regions of light and dark. In this case, however, the dark regions would not be liquid.

The images comprising this mosaic were acquired from distances ranging from 650,000 kilometers (400,000 miles) to 300,000 kilometers (200,000 miles).

Source: NASA

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  • (del) (cur) 14:37, 24 November 2004 . . The Singing Badger ( Talk | contribs) . . 1000×1000 (102,189 bytes) (Mosaic of images of Titan's surface, 23 Nov 2004)

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The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed):
  • Cassini–Huygens
  • Xanadu (Titan)
  • Shangri-la (Titan)
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