The Cassini spacecraft has beamed back a new, more detailed image of
smog-enshrouded Titan. This view represents an improvement in resolution
of nearly three times over the previous Cassini image release of Titan
(see PIA05392).
The superimposed coordinate system grid in the accompanying image at
right illustrates the geographical regions of the moon that are
illuminated and visible, as well as the orientation of Titan. North is
up and rotated 25 degrees to the left. The yellow curve marks the
position of the boundary between day and night on Titan. This image
shows about one quarter of Titan's surface, from 0 to 70 degrees West
longitude, and just barely overlaps part of the surface shown in the
previous Titan image release. Most of the visible surface in this image
has not yet been shown in any Cassini image.
The image was obtained with the narrow angle camera on June 14, 2004, at
a phase, or Sun-Titan-spacecraft, angle of 61 degrees and at a distance
of 10.4 million kilometers (6.5 million miles) from Titan. The image
scale is 62 kilometers (39 miles) per pixel. The image was magnified by
a factor of two using a linear interpolation scheme. No further processing
to remove the effects of the overlying atmosphere has been performed.
The observed brightness variations are real, on scales of one hundred
kilometers or less. The image was obtained in the near-infrared (centered
at 938 nanometers) through a polarizing filter. The combination was
designed to reduce the obscuration by atmospheric haze. The haze is more
transparent at 938 nanometers than at shorter wavelengths, and light of
938 nanometers wavelength is not absorbed by methane gas in Titan's
atmosphere. Light at this wavelength consequently samples the surface,
and the polarizer blocks out light scattered mainly by the haze. This is
similar to the way a polarizer, put on the front of a lens of a hand-held
camera, makes distant objects more clear on Earth.
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 Office of Space
Science, 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.