Figure 1
This radar image of the surface of Saturn's moon Titan was acquired on
October 26, 2004, when the Cassini spacecraft flew approximately 1,600
kilometers (994 miles) above the surface and acquired radar data for the
first time.
Brighter areas may correspond to rougher terrains and darker areas are thought
to be smoother. This image highlights some of the darker terrain, which the Cassini
team has dubbed "Si-Si the Cat." This nickname was chosen after a team member's
daughter, Si-Si, pointed out that the dark terrain has a cat-like appearance. The
interconnected dark spots are consistent with a very smooth or highly absorbing
solid, or could conceivably be liquid.
The image is about 250 kilometers (155 miles) wide by 478 kilometers (297
miles) long, and is centered at 50 N, 54 W in the northern hemisphere of
Titan, over a region that has not yet been imaged optically. The smallest
details seen on the image vary from about 300 meters (984 feet) to 1
kilometer (.62 mile).
The data were acquired in the synthetic aperture radar mode of Cassini's
radar instrument. In this mode, radio signals are bounced off the surface
of Titan.
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 instrument
team is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
For the latest news about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini. For more information about the mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.