The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on NASA's Cassini spacecraft
recorded these infrared images of Titan's northern hemisphere.
The images show the reflection of sunlight on Titan's atmosphere at 2.8
microns, longer wavelengths than human eyes can detect. The image appears
in false color so that the highest reflection appears as a reddish hue.
The vast ethane cloud can be seen in all images as a reddish band just
north of 50 degrees latitude. The top of the image in panel D also shows
a strong reflection off the limb of the planet (also reddish), which is
caused by the lighting angle and does not indicate the presence of clouds.
Image (A) was taken on Dec. 13, 2004; image (B) on Aug. 22, 2005; image
(C) on Aug. 21, 2005; and image (D) on Sept. 7, 2005.
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
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm The visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.
