This fascinating movie from Cassini shows the changing shapes of features
in the outer haze layers of Titan's atmosphere.
The original movie was created from 36 images taken over the course of
three hours as Cassini receded from Titan, following its flyby on March
31, 2005. These observations were made about four and a half to eight
hours after Cassini's closest approach. Additional frames were inserted
between the 36 Cassini images in order to smooth the movement of the
atmosphere -- a scheme called interpolation -- for a total of 71 frames
in the released movie.
The most obvious changes in this movie occur in the bright layers in the
middle of the arc, near the one o'clock position, where hazy filaments
appear to flow and merge. Near the 12 o'clock position there is wave
motion from right to left.
The changing features represent a great deal of dynamic activity high in
this cold, hazy atmosphere. They resemble the activity observed during
Cassini's first Titan encounter.
The images for this movie were taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera on
April 1, 2005, using a filter sensitive to visible violet light and were
acquired at distances ranging from approximately 99,000 to 155,000
kilometers (62,000 to 96,000 miles) from Titan. Resolution in the images
changes from 6 to 9 kilometers (4 to 6 miles) per pixel during the movie.
The frames have been scaled so that Titan does not appear to shrink in
size as Cassini moves away.
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 and its two onboard cameras were
designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at
the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page,
http://ciclops.org.
