This image from the Synthetic Aperture Radar instrument on the Cassini
spacecraft shows the radar-bright western margin of Xanadu, one of the
most prominent features on Titan (see also PIA08425). In radar images,
bright regions indicate a rough or scattering material, while a dark
region might be smoother or more absorbing. The image was taken during a
flyby of Titan on April 30, 2006.
Narrow, sinuous, radar-bright channels, meandering like a maze, are seen
on the right-hand-side of the image. These may be river networks that
might have flowed onto the dark areas on the left of the image. Vast,
dark areas covered by dunes are seen on the equatorial regions of Titan
(see PIA03567) and have been referred to as Titan's "sand seas."
Near the middle of the image is a radar-bright area that has a boundary
with the dark sand seas. Because the radar illumination is coming from
the top, this indicates that the bright region, Xanadu, is topographically
higher than the sand seas.
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 radar
instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with
team members from the United States and several European countries.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm.
