CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Outbound View

Cassini's flyby of Titan on July 22, 2006 sent the spacecraft into a more inclined orbit of Saturn. This remarkably clear view from that flyby shows the moon's characteristically dark mid-latitudes, and more southern terrain than Cassini has usually been able to glimpse.

This was Cassini's first "outgoing flyby" of Titan (5,150 kilometers, 3,200 miles across), where the illuminated hemisphere was visible following closest approach.

The image was taken in polarized infrared light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 22, 2006 at a distance of approximately 148,000 kilometers (92,000 miles) from Titan. Image scale is 9 kilometers (5 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: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Released: August 18, 2006 (PIA 08246)
Image/Caption Information 		  Outbound View
PIA 08246
Avg Rating: 9.10/10

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