Credit:

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

 

NASA recently published an outstanding image of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, showing giant cloud system covering the moon's north pole. 

 

The image was acquired with Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, during a flyby designed to observe Titan's limb. The flyby occurred on 29 December 2006. The image scans the north pole down to a latitude of 62° North, and at all observed longitudes.

 

Atmospheric circulation models of Titan predicted such cloud patterns, but they had never been observed before in such detail. The condensates may be the source of liquids that fill Titan's lakes, discovered recently by radar instruments.

 

The image, taken from a distance of approximately 90,000 km, was color-coded in blue, green and red for the 2 µm, 2.7 µm and 5 µm wavelengths, respectively.

 

Further reading

Titan

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/moons/moonDetails.cfm?pageID=16

Cassini-Huygens Mission

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm

 

 

Aymen Mohamed Ibrahem

Senior Astronomy Specialist