Dazzling Views Show Saturn Moon Titan's Surface Like Never Before

Space.com ^ | July 19, 2018 01:42pm ET | Mike Wall,

[BenLurkin]

Cassini team members created the six-image set using data collected over 13 years by the Saturn-orbiting probe's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). As its name suggests, VIMS deals in long-wavelength infrared light, allowing the instrument to see through the thick Titanic haze that obscures visible-light views of the moon's frigid surface.

But the new mosaics are pretty much seamless — a breakthrough made possible by a reanalysis of the VIMS data and laborious hand processing of the resulting mosaics, mission team members said.

"With the seams now gone, this new collection of images is by far the best representation of how the globe of Titan might appear to the casual observer if it weren't for the moon's hazy atmosphere, and it likely will not be superseded for some time to come," NASA officials wrote in a statement Wednesday (July 18).

Indeed, the photos give viewers a new appreciation for Titan's complex and varied surface, which boasts dunes of carbon-containing organic compounds, icy deposits and vast seas of liquid hydrocarbons. (Titan is the only extraterrestrial object known to harbor stable bodies of liquid on its surface.)

[Bullish]

Has anyone on the left blamed Trump for all this yet?

[ExGeeEye]

Apparently oxygen levels are about the same as your humor level. That’s unfortunate.

[ExGeeEye]

Apparently it has about the same amount of oxygen as you have a sense of humor.

I was thinking of doing a massive fart joke but I suppose that would have been lost on you too.

[ExGeeEye]

Ah, refreshingly the sort of response I had hoped for, rather than the cold ones from the Joe Fridays out there.

[jmacusa]

You’re very welcome. And remember jmacusa’s Number 1 Rule about stuff from space: NEVER, Repeat, NEVER go poking stuff from outer space with a stick.

[IronJack]

Thanks for the unwarranted ad hominem attack.

[tet68]

allowing the instrument to see through the thick Titanic haze

If they’d had one of those, all those people would have
reached New York safely...

[Red Badger]

With all the ‘Fossil Fuel’, the Global Warming must be intense!......................don’t strike a match.......................

[Lazamataz]

I can’t. Sessions got all my sleep medications.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

What? No Sirens? I don't see any Sirens! Where are the Sirens?

[ExGeeEye]

Thanks for confirming the presence of a large titanium rod stuck so far up your backside you have to wear a hat to conceal the upper end.

[ExGeeEye]

Well there go all my weekend plans.

[IronJack]

Have you asked for a med review lately?

[BlueLancer]

Sirens of Titan ... Al Stewart (Modern Times)

I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
Carried along by their call
Seeking for a way to enlighten
Searching for the sense of it all

Like a kiss on the wind I was thrown to the stars
Captured and ordered in the army of Mars
Marching to the sound of the drum in my head
I followed the call

Only to be Malachi Constant
I thought I came to this earth
Living in the heart of the moment
With the riches I gained at my birth

But here in the yellow and blue of my days
I wander the endless Mercurian caves
Watching for the signs the Harmonians make
The words on the walls

I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
And so I came in the end
Under the shadow of Saturn
With statues and birds for my friends

Finding a home at the end of my days
Looking around I've only to say
I was the victim of a series of accidents
As are we all

I was drawn by the sirens of Titan (as are we all)
As are we all ...

[ExGeeEye]

No, why?

[steelyourfaith]

Beautiful