- Original Caption Released with Image:
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Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer has imaged a huge cloud
system covering the north pole of Titan.
This composite image shows the cloud, imaged at a distance of 90,000
kilometers (54,000 miles) during a Dec. 29, 2006, flyby designed to
observe the limb of the moon. Cassini's visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer scanned the limb, revealing this spectacular cloud system. It
covers the north pole down to a latitude of 62 degrees north and at all
observed longitudes.
Such a cloud cover was expected, according to the atmospheric circulation
models of Titan, but it had never been observed before with such details.
The condensates may be the source of liquids that fill the lakes recently
discovered by the radar instrument. This image was color-coded, with blue,
green and red at 2 microns, 2.7, and 5 microns, respectively.
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 Visual
and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of
Arizona where this image was produced.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.
- Image Credit:
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NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
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