02 August 2007
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
NASA recently published an exquisite infrared image of Titan (5,150 km across), Saturn's largest moon. The image was acquired with the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft.
The bright region at center is known as Adiri. It is 1,700 km wide, and lies within the windswept wastes of Titan's equatorial dune desert.
Like our Moon, Titan keeps one side turned to its parent planet. The image shows the side of Titan oriented away from Saturn. North on Titan is up and rotated 26° to the right.
The image was taken applying the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on 14 June 2007. The spacecraft was approximately 157,000 km from Titan. Image scale is 9 km per pixel.
An image of Adiri acquired by the Huygens space probe
Credit: NASA/ESA/University of Arizona
On 14 January 2005, the European space probe Huygens landed off the northeastern edge of Adiri. Huygens became the first space probe to land on a planetary moon. During its descent, Huygens acquired the first pictures of Titan's surface. Titan's smoggy atmosphere almost totally obscures visual light observations of Titan's surface. Scientists apply infrared and radar techniques to study Titan's topography.
Further Reading
The Cassini-Huygens Mission
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm
Aymen Mohamed Ibrahem