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.
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/.