Ron
November 8th 04, 10:54 PM
CASSINI RADAR SEES BRIGHT FLOW-LIKE FEATURE ACROSS TITAN SURFACE
From Lori Stiles, UA News Services, 520-621-1877
November 8, 2004
A strikingly bright, lobate feature has turned up in one of Cassini's first
radar images of Saturn's moon Titan.
"It may be something that flowed," Cassini radar team member Ralph Lorenz of
the University of Arizona said. "Or it could be something carved by erosion.
It's too early to say.
"But it looks very much like it's something that oozed across the surface.
It may be some sort of 'cryovolcanic' flow, an analog to volcanism on Earth
that is not molten rock but, at Titan's very cold temperatures, molten ice."
The radar image is online at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .
-----------------------------------------------
Contact Information:
Ralph Lorenz (520) 621-5585
Related Web site
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
-----------------------------------------------
Cassini radar mapped about one percent of Titan's surface during the Cassini
spacecraft's first close Titan flyby Oct. 26. The radar survey covered a
strip 75 miles wide (120 kilometers) and 1,200 miles (1,960 kilometers)
long in Titan's northern hemisphere.
Cassini was flying about 1,550 miles (2,494 kilometers) above Titan's
surface, with its radar centered at about 45 degrees north, 30 degrees west,
when it mapped the 90-square-mile (230-square-kilometer) area shown in the
new radar image.
The Cassini radar team presented the image today at the 86th annual meeting
of the American Astronomical Society Division of Planetary Sciences in
Louisville, Ky.
The radar instrument works by bouncing radio signals off Titan's surface and
timing their return. The more signal reflected back to the spacecraft, the
brighter the imaged area. Turning radio signals into radar images is time
consuming because so many numerical calculations must be made. "There's no
such thing as a 'raw' radar image," Lorenz said.
But two days after the Oct. 26 flyby, Cassini scientists knew that Titan is
no impact-crater-pocked dead world, but a much more interesting place.
Titan's surface is young -- it's been shaped by dynamic geologic processing,
Lorenz, Cassini interdisciplinary scientist Jonathan Lunine of the
University of Arizona, and other Cassini scientists agree.
Given this newest image, Lunine said, "Radar has provided the first evidence
for possible young cryovolcanism on Titan's surface. Now our challenge is to
find out what is flowing, how it works, and the implications for Titan's
evolution."
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington,
D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed,
developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument team is based at JPL,
working with team members from the United States and several European
countries.
PHOTO CAPTION: Oozing across Titan
This synthetic aperture radar image of the surface of Saturn�s moon Titan
was acquired on October 26, 2004, when the Cassini spacecraft flew
approximately 2,500 kilometers above the surface and acquired radar data for
the first time.
The radar illumination was from the south. Dark regions may represent areas
that are smooth, made of radar-absorbing materials, or are sloped away from
the direction of illumination. A striking lobate bright feature stretches
from upper left to lower right across this image, with connected arms� to
the east. The fact that the lower (southern) edges of the features are
brighter is consistent with the lobate structure being raised above the
relatively featureless darker background. Comparisons with other features
and data from other instruments will help to determine whether this is a
cryovolcanic flow, where water-rich liquid has welled up from Titan�s warm
interior.
The image is about 150 kilometers (90 miles) square, and is centered at
about 45 N, 30 W in the northern hemisphere of Titan, over a region that has
not yet been imaged optically. The smallest details seen on the image are
around 1 kilometer (.62 mile) across. Features are less clear at the bottom
of the image where the viewing was less favorable. A faint horizontal seam
between the radar beams can be seen half way up in this preliminary product.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA�s Science Mission Directorate, Washington,
D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed,
developed and assembled at JPL. The RADAR instrument team is based at NASA�s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., working with team members from
the USA and several European countries. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)
For the latest news about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini. For more information about the mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.
From Lori Stiles, UA News Services, 520-621-1877
November 8, 2004
A strikingly bright, lobate feature has turned up in one of Cassini's first
radar images of Saturn's moon Titan.
"It may be something that flowed," Cassini radar team member Ralph Lorenz of
the University of Arizona said. "Or it could be something carved by erosion.
It's too early to say.
"But it looks very much like it's something that oozed across the surface.
It may be some sort of 'cryovolcanic' flow, an analog to volcanism on Earth
that is not molten rock but, at Titan's very cold temperatures, molten ice."
The radar image is online at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .
-----------------------------------------------
Contact Information:
Ralph Lorenz (520) 621-5585
Related Web site
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
-----------------------------------------------
Cassini radar mapped about one percent of Titan's surface during the Cassini
spacecraft's first close Titan flyby Oct. 26. The radar survey covered a
strip 75 miles wide (120 kilometers) and 1,200 miles (1,960 kilometers)
long in Titan's northern hemisphere.
Cassini was flying about 1,550 miles (2,494 kilometers) above Titan's
surface, with its radar centered at about 45 degrees north, 30 degrees west,
when it mapped the 90-square-mile (230-square-kilometer) area shown in the
new radar image.
The Cassini radar team presented the image today at the 86th annual meeting
of the American Astronomical Society Division of Planetary Sciences in
Louisville, Ky.
The radar instrument works by bouncing radio signals off Titan's surface and
timing their return. The more signal reflected back to the spacecraft, the
brighter the imaged area. Turning radio signals into radar images is time
consuming because so many numerical calculations must be made. "There's no
such thing as a 'raw' radar image," Lorenz said.
But two days after the Oct. 26 flyby, Cassini scientists knew that Titan is
no impact-crater-pocked dead world, but a much more interesting place.
Titan's surface is young -- it's been shaped by dynamic geologic processing,
Lorenz, Cassini interdisciplinary scientist Jonathan Lunine of the
University of Arizona, and other Cassini scientists agree.
Given this newest image, Lunine said, "Radar has provided the first evidence
for possible young cryovolcanism on Titan's surface. Now our challenge is to
find out what is flowing, how it works, and the implications for Titan's
evolution."
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington,
D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed,
developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument team is based at JPL,
working with team members from the United States and several European
countries.
PHOTO CAPTION: Oozing across Titan
This synthetic aperture radar image of the surface of Saturn�s moon Titan
was acquired on October 26, 2004, when the Cassini spacecraft flew
approximately 2,500 kilometers above the surface and acquired radar data for
the first time.
The radar illumination was from the south. Dark regions may represent areas
that are smooth, made of radar-absorbing materials, or are sloped away from
the direction of illumination. A striking lobate bright feature stretches
from upper left to lower right across this image, with connected arms� to
the east. The fact that the lower (southern) edges of the features are
brighter is consistent with the lobate structure being raised above the
relatively featureless darker background. Comparisons with other features
and data from other instruments will help to determine whether this is a
cryovolcanic flow, where water-rich liquid has welled up from Titan�s warm
interior.
The image is about 150 kilometers (90 miles) square, and is centered at
about 45 N, 30 W in the northern hemisphere of Titan, over a region that has
not yet been imaged optically. The smallest details seen on the image are
around 1 kilometer (.62 mile) across. Features are less clear at the bottom
of the image where the viewing was less favorable. A faint horizontal seam
between the radar beams can be seen half way up in this preliminary product.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA�s Science Mission Directorate, Washington,
D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed,
developed and assembled at JPL. The RADAR instrument team is based at NASA�s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., working with team members from
the USA and several European countries. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)
For the latest news about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini. For more information about the mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.