Figure 1
Piercing the ubiquitous layer of smog enshrouding Titan, these images
from the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer reveals an
exotic surface covered with a variety of materials in the southern
hemisphere.
Using near-infrared colors--some three times deeper in the red visible to the
human eye--these images reveal the surface with unusual clarity. The left
image shows a variety of surface features at a wavelength of 2.0 microns.
The darker areas are possibly regions of relatively pure water ice, while the
brighter regions likely have a much higher amount of non-ice materials such
as simple hydrocarbons. The middle image measured at a wavelength of 2.8
microns shows a very dark surface almost everywhere, as expected for a
surface of water ice and simple hydrocarbons. The image on the right, taken
at 5.0 microns, is similar to the left image, indicating dark icy regions and
brighter hydrocarbon-rich materials. A bright cloud of methane particles is
apparent in all three images near the south pole. It's persistence over an
extensive range of colors indicates that these cloud particles are large
compared to the typical haze particles surrounding the planet, suggesting a
dynamically active atmosphere near the South Pole. Color was used to
enhance the various wavelengths.
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 was designed, developed and
assembled at JPL. The visible and infrared mapping spectrometer team is
based at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit,
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. For more information about the visual and
infrared mapping spectrometer visit http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu/.