This animation shows the Cassini spacecraft approaching Titan. The strips
of data on the globe represent areas observed with the Cassini radar
instrument. The pink swatch is the area observed by the radar instrument
during the Oct. 2004 flyby, while the blue area represents the coverage
observed during the Feb. 15 flyby. The movie zooms into several
interesting areas on Titan, including a giant crater the size of Iowa, an
area with bright hills and ridges surrounded by a dark plain, and a
smaller crater with a blanket of material surrounding it, possibly due to
ejected material being thrown out of the crater after an impact.
Click on the image above to download the QuickTime movie for the animated version.
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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard
cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar
instrument team is based at JPL, 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.