The image is the first topographic map of part of Titan's north polar region.
The false-color mosaic on the left was produced from overlapping stereo
images from the Cassini radar instrument and depicts Titan's north polar
region including several of its largest "seas." The mosaic (see PIA10008
for a larger version) has been false-colored to emphasize the contrast
between radar-dark areas believed to be lakes and seas (shown in blue and
black) and the relatively radar-bright dry land areas (shown in shades of
brown). The material filling the dark areas is most likely a mixture of
liquid methane, ethane and dissolved nitrogen.
The two "knife-shaped" images to the right are actually blowups of a
region in the mosaic of radar images outlined in blue. This region is
1,700 by 200 kilometers (1,050 by 125 miles) in area.
The upper right insert depicts the synthetic aperture radar image obtained
during Cassini's April 11, 2007, flyby. It shows multiple dark estuaries
including a large island in the eastern half. Extensive dendritic
(branching) systems of channels appear to feed into these estuaries. The
western portion includes what appear to be steep-sided depressions. These
have been hypothesized to be volcanic in origin, or alternatively to be
the result of dissolution of surface materials by fluids.
The lower right insert is the topographic map which combined data from the
April 11, 2007, flyby with that of a previous flyby on February 22 of the
same year. The result clearly shows that the bright areas are high
relative to the darker areas believed to be liquid filled. The
elevations—indicated by color—are relative to the mean for
Titan's radius of 2,575 kilometers (1,600 miles). The total range of
elevations is only about 1.3 kilometers (0.8 miles), so that surface
slopes are very gentle, a few degrees or less.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages
the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The
Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar
instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with
team members from the United States and several European countries.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm.
