Cassini images mysterious Titan
Posted: Wed, Oct 27, 2004, 8:31 PM ET (0031 GMT)
Images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft as it flew past Saturn's largest moon, Titan, late Tuesday have raised as many questions about the giant satellite as they answered. Cassini passed within 1,200 kilometers of Titan on Tuesday, the closest approach by any spacecraft to the cloud-enshrouded moon. The first images returned by Cassini, taken at infrared wavelengths that can penetrate the clouds, showed a landscape of light and dark features and a notable absence of impact craters. Those images suggest some kind of tectonic processes are taking place to continually resurface the moon, but scientists have only enough data to speculate. Cassini will pass by Titan several more times during its mission around Saturn, and will deploy Huygens, a European-built probe, into Titan's atmosphere in January.
Images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft as it flew past Saturn's largest moon, Titan, late Tuesday have raised as many questions about the giant satellite as they answered. Cassini passed within 1,200 kilometers of Titan on Tuesday, the closest approach by any spacecraft to the cloud-enshrouded moon. The first images returned by Cassini, taken at infrared wavelengths that can penetrate the clouds, showed a landscape of light and dark features and a notable absence of impact craters. Those images suggest some kind of tectonic processes are taking place to continually resurface the moon, but scientists have only enough data to speculate. Cassini will pass by Titan several more times during its mission around Saturn, and will deploy Huygens, a European-built probe, into Titan's atmosphere in January.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
|
|
news links
|
|
Sunday, October 19
Greedy black hole feeds via two spiral arms
Netherlands Research School for Astronomy — 12:39 pm ET (1639 GMT) Kymeta Selected As Multi-Orbit SATCOM Provider For U.S. Army’s NGC2 Pilot
Kymeta — 12:37 pm ET (1637 GMT) Solstar Space Signs $15 Million Global Agreement with Momentus
Solstar Space Co. — 12:36 pm ET (1636 GMT) ANT61 Signs LOI with Lumir
Space and Defense — 12:36 pm ET (1636 GMT) TracPlus and OroraTech Launch First-of-Its-Kind Two-Way Data Integration to Accelerate Wildfire Decision-Making
OroraTech — 12:35 pm ET (1635 GMT) |
