Saturn's mega-moon Titan, seen in January. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Edited by J. Major.
Looking through the layers of Titan's haze. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Edited by J. Major.
Saturn’s moon Titan is one of the strangest and most compelling destinations in the Solar System. Aptly named, it’s the largest moon we know of, and shrouded in an atmosphere even thicker than the Earth’s. So thick, in fact, that when the Voyager probes made the first close passes by Titan in the 80s, scientists were disappointed to see nothing but a featureless orange haze shrouding this entire world in mystery.
The robotic space explorer Cassini snapped these shots in late January. Jason Major, of Lights in the Dark fame, provided some artful post-processing of the raw images. Cassini’s cameras and radar can pierce the clouds and roll back the curtain on some of Titan’s secrets. A few years ago it even sent a lander parachuting down to the surface. Some of the facts uncovered during the mission: Titan has rain, lakes and rivers that flow much like water would on Earth–except they’re made of methane. It may even have an ocean of actual water underground.
The dark regions in the top image could be mistaken for these methane pools, but they’re actually seas of dark dunes. (The methane collects in channels and lakes near the poles.) In the lower picture we see the complex layers of organic haze that intrigue scientists who are interested in what Earth’s own atmosphere may have looked like in its earliest days.
Cassini buzzes by Titan frequently. The spacecraft uses the big moon’s gravity to slingshot itself around the Saturn system. The next pass takes place on February 19th. Learn more.
