On Oct. 26, 2004, the Cassini spacecraft flew over Saturn's moon Titan at
less than 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) at closest approach. Cassini
acquired several infrared images with spatial resolution ranging from a
few tens of kilometers (several miles) to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) per
pixel.
The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument took images from
visible wavelengths to the 5.1 micron wavelength. This figure shows the
mosaic obtained at the 2.03 micron wavelength. Observations are centered
on the hemisphere of Titan that points away from Saturn.
The left (inset) high-resolution image is 30 kilometers (19 miles) per
pixel. It shows the site where the European Space Agency's Huygens probe
successfully landed on Jan. 14, 2005. The right inset shows a circular
feature that scientists think is a volcano, which may be responsible for
replenishing Titan's methane atmosphere.
Titan's diameter is 5,151 kilometers (3,200 miles), which is larger than
Jupiter's moon Callisto and smaller than another Jovian moon, Ganymede.
Callisto has a diameter of 4,806 kilometers (2,986 miles) and Ganymede is
5,268 kilometers (3,273 miles).
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 visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.
