Beneath Titan's Veil (CICLOPS Saturn Space Art Gallery)

CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS

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Beneath Titan's Veil

"This image shows a possible vision of the surface of Titan, based on current understanding of data from the Cassini-Huygens mission. The scene is dark -- the clouds are thick on Titan, so little light gets through, and of course the Sun is 10 times further away than it is from Earth. Rivers of hydrocarbons are seen, as well as hydrocarbon rain. I started the artwork with the landscape software Terragen. The sky came from a mixture of photography, the 3D software Bryce, and Photoshop. The rest of the image was hand-painted in Photoshop using a graphics tablet."

Mark A. Garlick © 2004
Artist's Website

Alliance Member Comments

Karina Hall (Apr 19, 2007 at 10:06 AM):

Thanks James.

JamesH (Apr 17, 2007 at 6:12 PM):

Morning to dark on Titan would average 7.97 earth days, but it would vary with season and latitude.

Karina Hall (Apr 9, 2007 at 10:34 AM):

I know Titan shows the same side to Saturn all the time, and it orbit is the same axis as the rings - but if standing on the surface, how long would a day be, from morning to dark as expressed in hours.

Karina

Red_dragon (Jan 20, 2007 at 1:50 PM):

Thanks!

carolyn (CICLOPS) (Jan 20, 2007 at 11:44 AM):

The illumination at the cloud tops of Saturn or Titan, which one could call `broad daylight' in the Saturn system, is about 1/100th of daylight on Earth and is similar to early Earth twilight or dusk. At the surface of Titan, it is akin to deep Earth twilight or dusk.

Red_dragon (Jan 19, 2007 at 2:43 AM):

Quite interesting.What I'd like to know,however,it's the level of illumination on Titan's surface;I've seen that Titan receives "only 1% of the sunlight",but I have unclear if that 1% refers to the sunlight received to the Saturnian system compared to what's received on Earth or if that 1% it's a "1% of that 1%" (in other words,Titan's surface receives only 1/10000th of illumination Earth receives)