CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Titanic Complexity

Titanic Complexity
PIA 07700
Avg Rating: 7.62/10

Full Size 1024x1024:
JPEG 78 KB
PNG 948 KB
TIFF 3.2 MB

 

Titanic Complexity
PIA 07701
Avg Rating: 8.20/10

Full Size 743x709:
JPEG 37 KB
PNG 173 KB
TIFF 528 KB
   These two views of Titan reveal structure in the moon's complex atmosphere. The geometry of Cassini's view of Titan during this flyby was similar to that of Voyager 1's pass in 1980.

The monochrome image was taken in visible violet light and shows the detached high haze layer that envelops Titan (5,150 kilometers, 3,200 miles across), with additional complexity to its structure in the far north.

The color view has been greatly contrast-enhanced and shows intriguing structure in the north that is also clearly visible in the violet light view.

The color view was created by combining images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters. Both views were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 26, 2005, at a distance of approximately 194,000 kilometers (121,000 miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 29 degrees. The image scale is 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.

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 imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.

Credit:
Released: February 13, 2006 (PIA 07700, 07701)
Image/Caption Information