Space & Astronomy

Cassini spies sun glinting on Titan's seas

By T.K. Randall
October 31, 2014

Image: Surface of Titan
Credit: (PD) NASA The enigmatic moon, which is shrouded in a thick atmosphere, has been of particular interest to scientists ever since Voyager 1 captured the first close-up shots of it way back in 1980.

When Cassini-Huygens arrived with its infrared imager over twenty years later it peered through the cloud to find a world that was distinctly alien yet strangely Earth-like with its own rivers, lakes, oceans and weather system based on liquid hydrocarbons. Now a further ten years on from the spacecraft's arrival at Saturn NASA has released a new series of photographs of Titan in the form of an impressive mosaic that not only shows the moon's oceans but also manages to capture the sun's rays glinting on the surface.

The region is known as Kraken Mare and is Titan's largest body of liquid. The 'bathtub ring' around the outside edge indicates that the sea level was once a lot higher than it is today.

Source: Discovery News

Tags: Titan, Saturn, Casini