This mosaic of image swaths from Cassini's Titan Radar Mapper, taken with
the synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), features a large dark region several
hundred kilometers across that differs in several significant ways from
potential lakes observed on Titan. It is not as dark to the radar as many
lakes (including lakes seen here), and the nature of the margin is
unusual. It has many characteristics in common with lakes, including its
channels and interior, yet its differences distinguish it from other
similar features. Some similarities are seen with the dark feature in
Titan pass T7 (PIA03563).
At top (north), the feature has characteristics of a shoreline, with round
bay-like margins and channels that drain into it; at left (west) and right
(east) it is rimmed by bright, feathery, branching channel-like
structures, some of which extend for tens of kilometers. Within the dark
feature some details can be seen, some of which seem to be extensions of
the channels draining into the dark feature.
The mosaic is near the south pole, centered near 82 degrees south, 205
degrees west. It includes data from Titan passes T39, T55, T57, T58, and
T59, collected between December 2007 and July 2009. The individual swaths
vary in resolution and illumination angle, so the edges are visible and
surface features look somewhat different across swath boundaries, but the
regional view can still be understood. As more SAR image swaths of Titan
are collected by Cassini, mosaics of those images reveal features that
cannot be appreciated within the individual observations.
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/.