CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Titan Mosaic: October 2004

Titan Mosaic: October 2004
PIA 06158
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   This mosaic of images taken at 28 footprints shows the regional coverage taken during Cassini's first encounter with Titan on October 26, 2004.

Cutting through the middle of the image is a sharp boundary between the bright region known as Xanadu Regio on the right and dark terrain to the left. Several smaller bright features, between 30 and 300 kilometers (20-200 miles) across are seen within the dark terrain. These intriguing features are a focus of further research and observations for Cassini scientists. One clue as to their origin and history are bright "trails" within the dark material on the eastern sides of the bright spots.

A mottled texture is seen within Xanadu, including dark, crisscrossing lineaments, suggestive of tectonic activity. No definitive craters have been found in these images, though several bright rings or circular features are seen in the dark terrain. However, without topographic shading, their identification as impact structures can not be confirmed.

The images in this mosaic have been processed to enhance surface features and sharpen boundaries. All images were taken at a special filter centered in the near-infrared at 938 nanometers that provides the camera's best view of surface features. The images making up this mosaic were taken at distances ranging from 100,400 to 71,000 kilometers (62,400 to 44,100 miles) and have pixel scales ranging from 1.2 to 0.8 kilometers (0.75 to 0.5miles).

This mosaic is scaled to 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel and is centered at 20 degrees south latitude, 157.5 degrees west longitude on Titan. Black areas on this mosaic represent areas where images were not taken during this sequence or were not returned from Cassini.

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: December 16, 2004 (PIA 06158)
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