PIA06404: Titan's Surface Revealed
 Target Name:  Titan
 Is a satellite of:  Saturn
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens
 Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
 Instrument:  Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer
 Product Size:  720 x 540 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  University of Arizona / LPL
 Primary Data Set:  Cassini
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA06404.tif (147.7 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA06404.jpg (22.16 kB)


Original Caption Released with Image:
figure 1 for PIA06404
Figure 1

Piercing the ubiquitous layer of smog enshrouding Titan, these images from the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer reveals an exotic surface covered with a variety of materials in the southern hemisphere.

Using near-infrared colors -- some three times deeper in the red visible to the human eye -- these images reveal the surface with unusual clarity. The left image shows a variety of surface features at a wavelength of 2.0 microns. The darker areas are possibly regions of relatively pure water ice, while the brighter regions likely have a much higher amount of non-ice materials such as simple hydrocarbons. The middle image measured at a wavelength of 2.8 microns shows a very dark surface almost everywhere, as expected for a surface of water ice and simple hydrocarbons. The image on the right, taken at 5.0 microns, is similar to the left image, indicating dark icy regions and brighter hydrocarbon-rich materials. A bright cloud of methane particles is apparent in all three images near the south pole. It's persistence over an extensive range of colors indicates that these cloud particles are large compared to the typical haze particles surrounding the planet, suggesting a dynamically active atmosphere near the South Pole.



Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Image Addition Date: