Dunelands Of Titan – NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft Delivers A New Image

| November 2, 2015 | Astronomy | No Comments

MessageToEagle.com – Saturn’s frigid moon Titan has some characteristics that are oddly similar to Earth, but still slightly alien. It has clouds, rain and lakes (made of methane and ethane), a solid surface (made of water ice), and vast dune fields (filled with hydrocarbon sands).

The dark, H-shaped area seen here contains two of the dune-filled regions, Fensal (in the north) and Aztlan (to the south).

NASA's Cassini Spacecraft delivers - a new image showing Titan's hydrocarbon sand dunes. Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft delivers – a new image showing Titan’s hydrocarbon sand dunes. Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Cassini’s cameras have frequently monitored the surface of Titan (3200 miles or 5150 kilometers across) to look for changes in its features over the course of the mission. Any changes would help scientists better understand different phenomena like winds and dune formation on this strangely earth-like moon.

This view looks toward the leading side of Titan. North on Titan is up. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 25, 2015 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 938 nanometers.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 450,000 miles (730,000 kilometers) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 32 degrees. Image scale is 3 miles (4 kilometers) per pixel.

For a closer view of Fensal-Aztlan, see PIA07732, which was obtained when Cassini spacecraft made its flyby in 2007 – (image below).

Once the region was only known as “H” . The northern branch of the H is now called "Fensal," while the southern branch is known as "Aztlan." Fensal is littered with small "islands" ranging in size from 5 to 40 kilometers (3 to 25 miles) across that are thought to be water ice upland areas, surrounded by shallower terrain that is filled-in with dark particulate material from the atmosphere. Aztlan, on the other hand, appears comparatively devoid of small islands, with three large islands in its western reaches, plus only a few smaller islands. The largest of these islands is called "Sotra Facula" (just right of center in the bottom left mosaic frame), and measures 240 by 120 kilometers (149 to 75 miles) across.
Once the region was only known as “H” . The northern branch of the H is now called “Fensal,” while the southern branch is known as “Aztlan.” Fensal is littered with small “islands” ranging in size from 5 to 40 kilometers (3 to 25 miles) across that are thought to be water ice upland areas, surrounded by shallower terrain that is filled-in with dark particulate material from the atmosphere. Aztlan, on the other hand, appears comparatively devoid of small islands, with three large islands in its western reaches, plus only a few smaller islands. The largest of these islands is called “Sotra Facula” (just right of center in the bottom left mosaic frame), and measures 240 by 120 kilometers (149 to 75 miles) across.

 

Saturn's moon Titan, Titan, as imaged by Cassini in October 2006, Credits: NASA/JPL, Univ. of AZ, ESA, and USGS
Saturn’s moon Titan, Titan, as imaged by Cassini in October 2006, Credits: NASA/JPL, Univ. of AZ, ESA, and USGS

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (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. 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, Colorado.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov or http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.

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