Galerie de photos de Titan, satellite de la planète Saturne

<h1>PIA06549: Squashed Pole</h1><div class="PIA06549" lang="en" style="width:597px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Saturn's planet-sized moon Titan displays a surprisingly flattened-looking north pole in this Cassini image. The cause of this flattening is not presently known. Titan's diameter is 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles).</p><p>A hint of the bright, streak-like clouds seen intermittently in Cassini images of the south polar region is faintly visible at the bottom of the image.</p><p>This view was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Nov. 1, 2004, at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 99 degrees. The image scale is 17 kilometers (10.6 miles) per pixel. </p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a> and the Cassini imaging team home page, <a href="http://ciclops.org/">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06549" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06549: Squashed Pole sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06549: Squashed Pole sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06549: Squashed Pole
<h1>PIA10418: Banded Moon</h1><div class="PIA10418" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This Cassini spacecraft view of Titan shows banding in the atmosphere of the moon's northern hemisphere.</p><p>Like the planet Venus, Titan's atmosphere rotates faster than its surface, a characteristic called "super rotation."</p><p>North on Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) is up. </p><p>White specks seen on Titan are artifacts of the process used to enhance features in the moon's atmosphere. The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on May 28, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 185,000 kilometers (115,000 miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 89 degrees. Image scale is 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov" class="external free" target="wpext">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org" class="external free" target="wpext">http://ciclops.org</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10418" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA10418: Banded Moon sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA10418: Banded Moon sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA10418: Banded Moon
<h1>PIA03566: Tectonic Features</h1><div class="PIA03566" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This synthetic aperture radar image of Titan was taken on Oct. 28, 2005, as the Cassini spacecraft flew by at a distance of 1,350 kilometers (840 miles). This was the first pass dedicated to radar, and it was the fourth time Cassini's radar honed in on the smoggy moon.</p><p>The bright, curving features are high-standing ridges, poking up above the plains of Titan. Some of the ridges extend for over 100 kilometers (60 miles). They are likely to be tectonic in origin, formed by deformation of Titan's icy crust. The low-lying terrain between the ridges is covered in dark streaks, which could be dunes formed by wind. The streaks, spaced 1 to 2 kilometers apart (0.6 to 1 mile), curve between patches of the bright terrain, which probably act as topographic barriers. </p><p>This image is 400 kilometers (250 miles) across and 275 kilometers-wide (170 miles). It is located 8 degrees south latitude and 215 degrees west longitude.</p><p>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 team is based at JPL, working with team members from the United States and several European countries.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03566" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA03566: Tectonic Features sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA03566: Tectonic Features sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA03566: Tectonic Features
<h1>PIA09179: Titan (T18) Viewed by Cassini's Radar - Sept. 23, 2006</h1><div class="PIA09179" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This radar image, obtained by Cassini's radar instrument during a near-polar flyby on Sept. 23, 2006, is the second scene that shows clear shorelines reminiscent of terrestrial lakes. </p><p>With Titan's colder temperatures and hydrocarbon-rich atmosphere, these lakes most likely contain a combination of methane and ethane (both hydrocarbons), not water. This high-latitude opportunity confirmed scientists' predictions that lakes would be present here, consistent with calculations that suggested that hydrocarbons would be stable as liquids at the colder, high latitudes. It also showed unusual complex terrain, the origin of which remains a mystery.</p><p>The image is illuminated by the radar from the top, and shows features as small as about 300 meters (980 feet). Starting at the left (63 degrees north latitude by 255 degrees west longitude), where the terrain appears bland and dark, the swath heads northeast into a more rugged, mottled terrain, probably containing dried lakes and canyons formed by the presence of liquid hydrocarbons. </p><p>The first lake, an irregular, almost-triangular shape about 16 kilometers (10 miles) across at the widest point, can be seen near the bottom of the image; it appears to be fed by two channels from the south. Several more lakes can be seen about one-third of the way into the swath, near the closest approach to the pole, (north of 75 degrees north latitude), including Titan's "kissing lakes" (see PIA08740), each 20 to 25 kilometers (12 to 16 miles) across. Two other lakes feature narrow or angular bays, including a broad peninsula that on Earth would be evidence that the surrounding terrain is higher and confines the liquid. Continuing on, about three-quarters of the way through the swath, the terrain becomes brighter and more rugged, again indicating possible dried lakes and canyon-like structures. A long 100-kilometer (60-mile) series of grooves appears, likely carved by liquids. Next is an area of bright terrain with an unusual directional texture, indicating possible dunes, but brighter and perhaps different in nature than those seen elsewhere. Finally, towards the end of the swath, where the image quality is poorest, the terrain becomes mottled and difficult to interpret.</p><p>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. </p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09179" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA09179: Titan (T18) Viewed by Cassini's Radar - Sept. 23, 2006 sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA09179: Titan (T18) Viewed by Cassini's Radar - Sept. 23, 2006 sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA09179: Titan (T18) Viewed by Cassini's Radar - Sept. 23, 2006
<h1>PIA06153: Second Titan Targeted Flyby #3</h1><div class="PIA06153" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This image was taken during Cassini's very close approach to Titan on Dec. 13, 2004.</p><p>Bright streaks of cloud in Titan's southern hemisphere are visible. Linear clouds such as these have appeared intermittently in this region of Titan.</p><p>The image was obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera at a distance of approximately 178,600 kilometers (111,000 miles) from Titan, through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 918 nanometers. The Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle is 15 degrees. The image scale is about 10.5 kilometers (6.5 miles) per pixel. </p><p>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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a> and the Cassini imaging team home page, <a href="http://ciclops.org/">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06153" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06153: Second Titan Targeted Flyby #3 sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06153: Second Titan Targeted Flyby #3 sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06153: Second Titan Targeted Flyby #3
<h1>PIA06182: Titan’s Waves?</h1><div class="PIA06182" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Multiple upper stratospheric haze layers are evident in this ultraviolet view from Cassini looking toward Titan's south pole. The alternating bright and dark bands may be due to differing haze concentrations produced by what may be gravity wave motions (the atmospheric equivalent of ripples on a pond), or perhaps they are evidence of shadows cast by haze layers moving upward as waves pass by in the atmosphere. East-west waves suggestive of other wave motions are also visible in these layers.</p><p>The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Feb. 14, 2005, through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of polarized ultraviolet light centered at 338 nanometers. The image was acquired at a distance of approximately 151,000 kilometers (94,000 miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 20 degrees. Resolution in the image is about 900 meters (3,000 feet) per pixel. </p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a> and the Cassini imaging team home page, <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06182" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06182: Titan’s Waves? sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06182: Titan’s Waves? sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06182: Titan’s Waves?
<h1>PIA08117: Titan Descent Data Movie with Bells and Whistles</h1><div class="PIA08117" lang="en" style="width:516px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p><a href="/archive/PIA08117.mov"></a><br />Click on the image for QuickTime Movie of<br />Titan Descent Data Movie with Bells and Whistles</p><p>This movie, built with data collected during the European Space Agency's Huygens probe on Jan. 14, 2005, shows the operation of the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer camera during its descent and after touchdown. The camera was funded by NASA.</p><p>The almost four-hour-long operation of the camera is shown in less than five minutes. That's 40 times the actual speed up to landing and 100 times the actual speed thereafter.</p><p>The first part of the movie shows how Titan looked to the camera as it acquired more and more images during the probe's descent. Each image has a small field of view, and dozens of images were made into mosaics of the whole scene.</p><p>The scientists analyzed Huygens' speed, direction of motion, rotation and swinging during the descent. The movie includes sidebar graphics that show:</p><p> (Lower left corner) Huygens' trajectory views from the south, a scale bar for comparison to the height of Mount Everest, colored arrows that point to the sun and to the Cassini orbiter. (Top left corner) A close-up view of the Huygens probe highlighting large and unexpected parachute movements, a scale bar for comparison to human height. (Lower right corner) A compass that shows the changing direction of view as Huygens rotates, along with the relative positions of the sun and Cassini. (Upper right corner) A clock that shows Universal Time for Jan. 14, 2005 (Universal Time is 7 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time). Above the clock, events are listed in mission time, which starts with the deployment of the first of the three parachutes. </p><p>Sounds from a left speaker trace Huygens' motion, with tones changing with rotational speed and the tilt of the parachute. There also are clicks that clock the rotational counter, as well as sounds for the probe's heat shield hitting Titan's atmosphere, parachute deployments, heat shield release, jettison of the camera cover and touchdown.</p><p>Sounds from a right speaker go with the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer activity. There's a continuous tone that represents the strength of Huygens' signal to Cassini. Then there are 13 different chimes - one for each of instrument's 13 different science parts - that keep time with flashing-white-dot exposure counters. During its descent, the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer took 3,500 exposures. </p><p>The Huygens probe was delivered to Saturn's moon Titan by the Cassini spacecraft, which is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. NASA supplied two instruments on the probe, the descent imager/spectral radiometer and the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer. </p><p>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 descent imager/spectral radiometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a></p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08117" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08117: Titan Descent Data Movie with Bells and Whistles sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08117: Titan Descent Data Movie with Bells and Whistles sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08117: Titan Descent Data Movie with Bells and Whistles
<h1>PIA07876: Titan's Odd Spot Baffles Scientists</h1><div class="PIA07876" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p><a href="/figures/PIA07876_fig1.jpg"></a><br>Three views of Titan’s Odd Spot</p><p>The recently discovered infrared-bright spot on Titan (see <a href="/catalog/PIA07877">PIA07877</a>) is the type of enigmatic feature that is best investigated by putting together as many different types of complementary information as possible. Cassini's varied array of scientific instruments is equal to the task. This montage shows the spot in infrared wavelengths from the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on the left, from the imaging science subsystem in the center, and a combination of both data sets on the right.</p><p>When put together, the two different views show more than either does separately. The visual and infrared spectrometer team noted the bright region in the image on the left after Cassini's March 31, 2004, Titan encounter. The strange, bright feature to the southeast of Xanadu (see <a href="/catalog/PIA06154">PIA06154</a>) was flagged as unusual and informally dubbed "The Smile" by imaging team members in December 2004. Together the images show that The Smile (seen by the imaging cameras at 0.938 micron) bounds the infrared "Bright, Red Spot" toward the southeast. The bright region seen in the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer image extends several hundred kilometers to the north and west of The Smile, but does not cover the dark terrain located between this area and Xanadu farther to the northwest. The Smile feature also seems to extend farther west at the south end than the Bright, Red Spot.</p><p>It seems clear that both instruments are detecting the same basic feature on Titan's surface. This bright patch may be due to an impact event, landslide, cryovolcanism, or atmospheric processes. Its distinct color and brightness suggest that it may have formed relatively recently. </p><p>The false-color image on the left was created using images taken at 1.7 microns (represented by blue), 2.0 microns (green), and 5.0 microns (red). The images that comprise this view were taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument on the April 16, 2005, Titan flyby. Several views were stitched together to make a mosaic. The result was then reprojected to simulate the view from the imaging camera so that the two could be directly compared.</p><p>The center image was taken by the narrow-angle camera on December 10, 2004, using a spectral filter centered at 0.938 microns (938 nanometers). The image was taken at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from Titan and has a pixel scale of 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel (see <a href="/catalog/PIA06154">PIA06154</a>) for original image). The image is centered on 8 degrees south latitude, 112 degrees west longitude. This image has been contrast enhanced and sharpened to improve surface feature visibility.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a>. For additional images visit the VIMS page at <a href="http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu">http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu</a> and the Cassini imaging team homepage <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07876" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA07876: Titan's Odd Spot Baffles Scientists sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA07876: Titan's Odd Spot Baffles Scientists sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA07876: Titan's Odd Spot Baffles Scientists
<h1>PIA06991: Surface Streaks</h1><div class="PIA06991" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This medium-resolution view shows some of the surface streaks of Titan's equatorial terrain. The streaks are oriented roughly east to west; however, some streaks curve to the north and others curve to the south, perhaps due to the topography of this region. North is a few degrees to the right of vertical. The scale is .85 kilometers (.53 miles) per pixel. This image was taken on Oct. 26, 2004, by Cassini's imaging science subsystem using near-infrared filters.</p><p>For the latest news about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/cassini">http://www.nasa.gov/cassini</a>. For more information about the mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a> and the Cassini imaging team home page, <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06991" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06991: Surface Streaks sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06991: Surface Streaks sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06991: Surface Streaks
<h1>PIA06229: Cassini's Views of Titan: False Color Composite</h1><div class="PIA06229" lang="en" style="width:757px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This false-color composite was created with images taken during the Cassini spacecraft's closest flyby of Titan on April 16, 2005. </p><p>It was created by combining two infrared images (taken at 938 and 889 nanometers) with a visible light image (taken at 420 nanometers). Green represents areas where Cassini is able to see down to the surface. Red represents areas high in Titan's stratosphere where atmospheric methane is absorbing sunlight. Blue along the moon's outer edge represents visible violet wavelengths at which the upper atmosphere and detached hazes are better seen.</p><p>A similar false-color image showing the opposite hemisphere of Titan was created from images taken during Cassini's first close flyby of the smoggy moon in October 2004 (see <a href="/catalog/PIA06139">PIA06139</a>). At that time, clouds could be seen near Titan's south pole, but in these more recent observations no clouds are seen.</p><p>North on Titan is up and tilted 30 degrees to the right.</p><p>The images used to create this composite were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on April 16, 2005, at distances ranging from approximately 173,000 to 168,200 kilometers (107,500 to 104,500 miles) from Titan and from a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 56 degrees. Resolution in the images approximately 10 kilometers per pixel.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a> and the Cassini imaging team home page, <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06229" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06229: Cassini's Views of Titan: False Color Composite sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06229: Cassini's Views of Titan: False Color Composite sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06229: Cassini's Views of Titan: False Color Composite
<h1>PIA06407: Titan's Surface Revealed</h1><div class="PIA06407" lang="en" style="width:223px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Piercing the ubiquitous layer of smog enshrouding Titan, these images from the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer reveals an exotic surface covered with a variety of materials in the southern hemisphere. </p><p>Using near-infrared colors -- some three times deeper in the red visible to the human eye -- these images reveal the surface with unusual clarity. The color image shows a false-color combination of the three previous images. The yellow areas correspond to the hydrocarbon-rich regions, while the green areas are the icier regions. Here, the methane cloud appears white, as it is bright in all three colors.</p><p>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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The visible and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson.</p><p>For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a>. For more information about the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer visit <a href="http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu/">http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu/</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06407" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06407: Titan's Surface Revealed sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06407: Titan's Surface Revealed sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06407: Titan's Surface Revealed
<h1>PIA07626: Titan's Ultraviolet Haze</h1><div class="PIA07626" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Looking back toward the sun brings out the thin haze than hovers 500 kilometers (310 miles) above Saturn's moon Titan. </p><p>The haze is composed of small particles whose diameter is comparable to the wavelength of light, which is ultraviolet light centered at 338 nanometers. Particles of this scale scatter sunlight most effectively in the direction opposite to the direction of sunlight. Scientists are still trying to understand what processes produce this thin, high-altitude haze layer.</p><p>North on Titan is up and tilted 10 degrees to the right. Titan is 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) across.</p><p>This image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 24, 2005, at a distance of approximately 917,000 kilometers (570,000 miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 145 degrees. Image scale is 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07626" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA07626: Titan's Ultraviolet Haze sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA07626: Titan's Ultraviolet Haze sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA07626: Titan's Ultraviolet Haze
<h1>PIA08211: Ring of Light</h1><div class="PIA08211" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Dazzling Titan glows with a 360-degree sunset as light scatters through its very extended atmosphere. Some structure is visible in the hazes of the northern polar hood.</p><p>To the left is Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across), far off on the opposite side of the ringplane. The rings show their unlit side to Cassini, as the spacecraft viewed them from slightly above the ringplane.</p><p>A world with strikingly Earth-like physical processes, frigid Titan is Saturn's largest natural satellite, at 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) across. Titan's image is saturated at the 5 o'clock position.</p><p>The view was acquired in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 2, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2.3 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 163 degrees. Cassini was 3.7 million kilometers (2.3 million miles) from Janus. Image scale is 14 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel on Titan and 22 kilometers (14 miles) on Janus.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08211" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08211: Ring of Light sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08211: Ring of Light sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08211: Ring of Light
<h1>PIA09823: Detached Haze</h1><div class="PIA09823" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The Cassini spacecraft peers closely at the layers of organic haze in Titan's upper atmosphere during a recent flyby.</p><p>Planet-sized Titan is 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) across.</p><p>The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 20, 2007 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of ultraviolet light centered at 338 nanometers. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 190,000 kilometers (118,000 miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 133 degrees.Image scale is 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09823" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA09823: Detached Haze sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA09823: Detached Haze sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA09823: Detached Haze
<h1>PIA08398: Titan Makes Contact</h1><div class="PIA08398" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>The murky orange disk of Saturn's moon Titan glides past -- a silent, floating sphere transiting Saturn.</p><p>Titan's photochemical smog completely obscures the surface in such natural color views. Its high-altitude hazes are visible against the disk of Saturn as they attenuate the light reflected by the planet.</p><p>Titan is 5,150 kilometers (3200 miles) across. The view was acquired from less than a degree above Saturn's ringplane.</p><p>Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 1, 2007, at a distance of approximately 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Titan. Image scale is 15 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel. </p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08398" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08398: Titan Makes Contact sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08398: Titan Makes Contact sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08398: Titan Makes Contact
<h1>PIA06987: Two Views of Titan's Haze</h1><div class="PIA06987" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>These images show two views of Titan's planet-wide stratospheric haze just before (left) and after (right) Cassini's first close encounter with the shrouded moon. The image on the left was taken on Oct. 25, 2004, through an ultraviolet filter, which is sensitive to scattering of sunlight by small haze particles. It shows the high-altitude haze at the north pole (top) illuminated above a surface blanketed in darkness during this winter season. Numerous striations are visible in the haze, indicating either waves passing through the layer or the presence of multiple layers. The pixel scale of this image is 2.8 kilometers (1.7 miles).</p><p>The image on the right was taken on Oct. 26, 2004, and shows Titan's night-side backlit by the Sun after Cassini's closest approach to the moon. The haze layer ringing the planet is illuminated because the small particles scatter significant sunlight in the forward direction. Variations in haze concentration and thickness around the globe are also evident and seem to be symmetric around the north pole (upper left). The pixel scale of this image is 6.6 kilometers (4.1 miles).</p><p>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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For the latest news about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/cassini">http://www.nasa.gov/cassini</a>. For more information about the mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a> and the Cassini imaging team home page, <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06987" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06987: Two Views of Titan's Haze sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06987: Two Views of Titan's Haze sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06987: Two Views of Titan's Haze
titanlakes2_cassini_big.jpg
titanlakes2_cassini_big.jpg
<h1>PIA09858: Titan Approaches Saturn</h1><div class="PIA09858" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Swathed in its thick blanket of atmosphere, frigid Titan approaches the brilliant limb of Saturn. </p><p>This view was obtained just minutes after the wide-angle view, <a href="/catalog/PIA09856">PIA09856</a>.</p><p>Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 29, 2008 at a distance of approximately 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Titan. Image scale is 14 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09858" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA09858: Titan Approaches Saturn sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA09858: Titan Approaches Saturn sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA09858: Titan Approaches Saturn
<h1>PIA11001: Titan's Ethane Lake</h1><div class="PIA11001" lang="en" style="width:480px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This artist concept shows a mirror-smooth lake on the surface of the smoggy moon Titan. </p><p>Cassini scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn's moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified ethane. This result makes Titan the only place in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.</p><p>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.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov" class="external free" target="wpext">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA11001" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA11001: Titan's Ethane Lake sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA11001: Titan's Ethane Lake sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA11001: Titan's Ethane Lake
<h1>PIA06139: Titan in False Color</h1><div class="PIA06139" lang="en" style="width:576px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This image shows Titan in ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths. It was taken by Cassini's imaging science subsystem on Oct. 26, 2004, and is constructed from four images acquired through different color filters. Red and green colors represent infrared wavelengths and show areas where atmospheric methane absorbs light. These colors reveal a brighter (redder) northern hemisphere. Blue represents ultraviolet wavelengths and shows the high atmosphere and detached hazes. </p><p>Titan has a gigantic atmosphere, extending hundreds of kilometers above the surface. The sharp variations in brightness on Titan's surface (and clouds near the south pole) are apparent at infrared wavelengths. The image scale of this picture is 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel.</p><p>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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a> and the Cassini imaging team home page, <a href="http://ciclops.org/">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06139" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06139: Titan in False Color sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06139: Titan in False Color sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06139: Titan in False Color
<h1>PIA10956: Xanadu's Channels</h1><div class="PIA10956" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>On the final flyby of Cassini's original four-year tour, its radar mapper captured these unusual channels on Titan at the edge of Xanadu, the widest seen in this area (For a radar image of Xanadu see <a href="/catalog/PIA08428">PIA08428</a>). These might be active rivers carrying methane or debris, or they might be dry riverbeds similar to earthly arroyos.</p><p>Past Cassini radar images have revealed different types of channels on Titan's surface (see <a href="/catalog/PIA03565">PIA03565</a> and <a href="/catalog/PIA07366">PIA07366</a>). They vary from bright to dark in radar (rough to smooth), and from fan-shaped to braided to meandering. Some drain into lakes, others disappear. Some of these channels may be several hundred meters, or feet, deep. </p><p>This image, taken from the flyby on May 28, 2008, shows the border of Xanadu as the bright-dark boundary running from the upper left to lower right. Southward from that boundary is an unusual set of channels. While these are brighter (more roughly textured) than the surrounding terrain, some are only slightly brighter, and some are as wide as 5 kilometers (about 3 miles)—about the size of the River Thames at its mouth east of London. They appear to flow out of the rough region of Xanadu. Careful inspection reveals smaller tributaries that wind through the brighter and apparently rougher terrain to the north. A close-up of one of the widest channels is shown at the lower left.</p><p>Scientists think that many of the channels on Titan are carved by methane deposited on the surface from strong but infrequent rainstorms. A bright channel may be dry, with the rough riverbed of icy particles (like those seen at the Huygens landing site) producing the radar brightness. The darker channels in this image resemble the dry lakes seen in the north polar area of Titan, so they may be dry as well, with their smoother (radar-dark) surfaces caused by finer-grained sediment deposits on the channel floors.</p><p>This image shows an area located at 15 degrees south latitude and 121 degrees west longitude. It is about 450 kilometers (280 miles) across, and has approximately 1 kilometer (0.62-mile) resolution. North is up.</p><p>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. </p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov" class="external free" target="wpext">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10956" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA10956: Xanadu's Channels sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA10956: Xanadu's Channels sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA10956: Xanadu's Channels
<h1>PIA07232: First Color View of Titan's Surface</h1><div class="PIA07232" lang="en" style="width:546px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>This image was returned yesterday, January 14, 2005, by the European Space Agency's Huygens probe during its successful descent to land on Titan. This is the colored view, following processing to add reflection spectra data, and gives a better indication of the actual color of the surface. </p><p>Initially thought to be rocks or ice blocks, they are more pebble-sized. The two rock-like objects just below the middle of the image are about 15 centimeters (about 6 inches) (left) and 4 centimeters (about 1.5 inches) (center) across respectively, at a distance of about 85 centimeters (about 33 inches) from Huygens. The surface is darker than originally expected, consisting of a mixture of water and hydrocarbon ice. There is also evidence of erosion at the base of these objects, indicating possible fluvial activity. </p><p> The image was taken with the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer, one of two NASA instruments on the probe.</p><p>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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Descent Imager/Spectral team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. </p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07232" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA07232: First Color View of Titan's Surface sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA07232: First Color View of Titan's Surface sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA07232: First Color View of Titan's Surface
<h1>PIA08391: Titan Beyond the Rings</h1><div class="PIA08391" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Cassini delivers this stunning vista showing small, battered Epimetheus and smog-enshrouded Titan, with Saturn's A and F rings stretching across the scene.</p><p>The color information in the colorized view is completely artificial: it is derived from red, green and blue images taken at nearly the same time and phase angle as the clear filter image. This color information was overlaid onto the previously released clear filter view (see <a href="/catalog/PIA07786">PIA07786</a>) in order to approximate the scene as it might appear to human eyes.</p><p>The prominent dark region visible in the A ring is the Encke gap (325 kilometers, or 200 miles wide), in which the moon Pan (26 kilometers, or 16 miles across) and several narrow ringlets reside. Moon-driven features which score the A ring can easily be seen to the left and right of the Encke gap.</p><p>A couple of bright clumps can be seen in the F ring.</p><p>Epimetheus is 116 kilometers (72 miles) across and giant Titan is 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) across.</p><p>The view was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 28, 2006, at a distance of approximately 667,000 kilometers (415,000 miles) from Epimetheus and 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Titan. The image captures the illuminated side of the rings. The image scale is 4 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel on Epimetheus and 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel on Titan. </p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08391" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA08391: Titan Beyond the Rings sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA08391: Titan Beyond the Rings sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA08391: Titan Beyond the Rings
<h1>PIA07001: Close-Up of Huygens Probe</h1><div class="PIA07001" lang="en" style="width:554px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p><a href="/figures/PIA07001_fig1.jpg"></a><br>Figure 1</p><p>The European Space Agency's Huygens probe appears shining as it coasts away from Cassini in this close-up of an image taken on Dec. 26, 2004, just two days after it successfully detached from the Cassini spacecraft. </p><p>In figure 1, the image on the left shows the relative size of the probe. The bright spots in both images are probably due to light reflecting off the blanketing material that covers the probe. Although only a few pixels across, this image is helping navigators reconstruct the probe's trajectory and pinpoint its position relative to Cassini. This information so far shows that the probe and Cassini are right on the mark and well within the predicted trajectory accuracy. This information is important to help establish the required geometry between the probe and the orbiter for radio communications during the probe descent on January 14. </p><p>The Huygens probe, built and managed by ESA, will remain dormant until the onboard timer wakes it up just before the probe reaches Titan's upper atmosphere on Jan. 14, 2005. Then it will begin a dramatic plunge through Titan's murky atmosphere, tasting its chemical makeup and composition as it descends to touch down on its surface. The data gathered during this 2-1/2 hour descent will be transmitted from the probe to the Cassini orbiter. Afterward, Cassini will point its antenna to Earth and relay the data through NASA's Deep Space Network to JPL and on to the European Space Agency's Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, which serves as the operations center for the Huygens probe mission. From this control center, ESA engineers will be tracking the probe and scientists will be standing by to process the data from the probe's six instruments.</p><p>This image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera at a distance of 52 kilometers (32 miles) from the probe on Dec. 26, 2004. The image has been magnified and contrast enhanced to aid visibility.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. </p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a> and <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/cassini/">http://www.nasa.gov/cassini</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07001" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA07001: Close-Up of Huygens Probe sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA07001: Close-Up of Huygens Probe sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA07001: Close-Up of Huygens Probe
<h1>PIA06220: New Titan Territory</h1><div class="PIA06220" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>Although the Huygens probe has now pierced the murky skies of Titan and landed on its surface, much of the moon remains for the Cassini spacecraft to explore. Titan continues to present exciting puzzles.</p><p>This view of Titan uncovers new territory not previously seen at this resolution by Cassini's cameras. The view is a composite of four nearly identical wide-angle camera images, all taken using a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 939 nanometers. The individual images have been combined and contrast-enhanced in such a way as to sharpen surface features and enhance overall brightness variations. </p><p>Some of the territory in this view was covered by observations made by the Cassini synthetic aperture radar in October 2004 and February 2005. At large scales, there are similarities between the views taken by the imaging science subsystem cameras and the radar results, but there also are differences. </p><p>For example, the center of the floor of the approximately 80-kilometer-wide (50-mile) crater identified by the radar team in February (near the center in this image, see <a href="/catalog/PIA07368">PIA07368</a> for the radar image) is relatively bright at 2.2 centimeters, the wavelength of the radar experiment, but dark in the near-infrared wavelengths used here by Cassini's optical cameras. This brightness difference is also apparent for some of the surrounding material and could indicate differences in surface composition or roughness.</p><p>Such comparisons, as well as information from observations acquired by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer at the same time as the optical camera observations, are important in trying to understand the nature of Titan's surface materials. </p><p>The images for this composite view were taken with the Cassini spacecraft on March 31, 2005, at distances ranging from approximately 146,000 to 130,000 kilometers (91,000 to 81,000 miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 57 degrees. The image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel. Previous observations indicate that, due to Titan's thick, hazy atmosphere, the sizes of surface features that can be resolved are a few times larger than the actual pixel scale. </p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a> and the Cassini imaging team home page, <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06220" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06220: New Titan Territory sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06220: New Titan Territory sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06220: New Titan Territory
<h1>PIA09856: Titan Slips Away</h1><div class="PIA09856" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;">p>The Cassini spacecraft captured this color portrait of Saturn and Titan only a few minutes before the haze-enshrouded moon slipped behind the planet's enormous bulk. The view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 5 degrees below the ringplane.</p><p>The northern hemisphere of Titan (5,150 kilometers, 3,200 miles across) presently appears darker than the south, a feature presumed to be a seasonal effect. </p><p>Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 29, 2008 at a distance of approximately 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Titan and 1 million kilometers (630,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 135 kilometers (84 miles) per pixel on Titan and 61 kilometers (38 miles) per pixel on Saturn.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09856" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA09856: Titan Slips Away sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA09856: Titan Slips Away sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA09856: Titan Slips Away
Saturne_Titan_Huygens_5.jpg
Saturne_Titan_Huygens_5.jpg
<h1>PIA06227: Cassini's Three Views of Titan</h1><div class="PIA06227" lang="en" style="width:800px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>These three views of Titan from the Cassini spacecraft illustrate how different the same place can look in different wavelengths of light. Cassini's cameras have numerous filters that reveal features above and beneath the shroud of Titan's atmosphere.</p><p>The first image, a natural color composite, is a combination of images taken through three filters that are sensitive to red, green and violet light. It shows approximately what Titan would look like to the human eye: a hazy orange globe surrounded by a tenuous, bluish haze. The orange color is due to the hydrocarbon particles which make up Titan's atmospheric haze. This obscuring haze was particularly frustrating for planetary scientists following the NASA Voyager mission encounters in 1980-81. Fortunately, Cassini is able to pierce Titan's veil at infrared wavelengths. A single view of this composite is also available (see <a href="/catalog/PIA06230">PIA06230</a>).</p><p>The second, monochrome view shows what Titan looks like at 938 nanometers, a near-infrared wavelength that allows Cassini to see through the hazy atmosphere and down to the surface. The view was created by combining three separate images taken with this filter, in order to improve the visibility of surface features. The variations in brightness on the surface are real differences in the reflectivity of the materials on Titan. A single view of this image is also available (see <a href="/catalog/PIA06228">PIA06228</a>).</p><p>The third view, which is a false-color composite, was created by combining two infrared images (taken at 938 and 889 nanometers) with a visible light image (taken at 420 nanometers). Green represents areas where Cassini is able to see down to the surface. Red represents areas high in Titan's stratosphere where atmospheric methane is absorbing sunlight. Blue along the moon's outer edge represents visible violet wavelengths at which the upper atmosphere and detached hazes are better seen. A single view of this composite is also available (see <a href="/catalog/PIA06229">PIA06229</a>).</p><p>A similar false-color image showing the opposite hemisphere of Titan was created from images taken during Cassini's first close flyby of the smoggy moon in October 2004 (see <a href="/catalog/PIA06139">PIA06139</a>). At that time, clouds could be seen near Titan's south pole, but in these more recent observations no clouds are seen.</p><p>North on Titan is up and tilted 30 degrees to the right.</p><p>All of these images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on April 16, 2005, at distances ranging from approximately 173,000 to 168,200 kilometers (107,500 to 104,500 miles) from Titan and from a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 56 degrees. Resolution in the images approximately 10 kilometers per pixel.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov</a>. For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06227" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA06227: Cassini's Three Views of Titan sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA06227: Cassini's Three Views of Titan sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA06227: Cassini's Three Views of Titan
Saturne_Titan_Huygens_2.jpg
Saturne_Titan_Huygens_2.jpg
<h1>PIA09748: The Smog-bound Moon</h1><div class="PIA09748" lang="en" style="width:394px;text-align:left;margin:auto;background-color:#000;padding:10px;max-height:150px;overflow:auto;"><p>A hazy orb hangs in space, swathed in its dense cocoon of frigid atmosphere. Titan's global, detached, high-altitude haze layer is visible here. Also visible is Titan's enigmatic polar hood, which hangs over the polar regions of the moon's northern hemisphere. Scientists will track changes in this feature as winter in Titan's northern hemisphere advances to spring.</p><p>Titan is 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) across.</p><p>The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2007. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 4.5 million kilometers (2.8 million miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 28 degrees. Image scale is 27 kilometers (17 miles) per pixel.</p><p>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 and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.</p><p>For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov">http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm</a>. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at <a href="http://ciclops.org">http://ciclops.org</a>.</p><br /><br /><a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09748" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" title="Voir l'image PIA09748: The Smog-bound Moon sur le site de la NASA">Voir l'image PIA09748: The Smog-bound Moon sur le site de la NASA.</a></div>
PIA09748: The Smog-bound Moon