Complex and unique canyon systems appear to have been intricately carved
into older terrain by the ample flow of liquid methane rivers on Saturn's
moon Titan, as seen in this radar image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft
on May 21, 2009.
The channels seen here indicate that fluids flowed from high plateaus on
the right to lowland areas on the left. In the center of the image, the
wide distribution of the channels' tributaries suggests that rainfall is
effectively eroding the surface. The bright terrain toward the bottom of
the image is interpreted as high cliffs and broken bedrock.
These canyon systems remind us that Titan is (or has recently been) a
dynamic world with a complicated geological history. Multiple channels
have flowed into a wide, dark arc in the center of this mountainous
region. Here, the canyons appear to have been filled by fine-grained
materials that appear dark (smooth) to Cassini's synthetic aperture radar.
These canyon-filling materials were later carved by a large river channel
that winds from the bottom left of the image toward the left center.
The image center is at 71 degrees south latitude, 240 degrees west
longitude, and its dimensions are 335 by 289 kilometers (208 by 179
miles). The radar illuminated this area from the top of the image at 18
degrees incidence angle. The areas seen here are typical of other regions
observed near Titan's south pole in other flybys (see PIA10018).
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's 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/index.cfm.