spacetoday.net: Cassini images mysterious Titan

Posted: Wed, Oct 27, 2004, 8:31 PM ET (0031 GMT)
Cassini image of Titan from Oct 2004 (NASA/JPL)

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.