* Astronomy

A simulation of the winds encountered by Huygens has lead planetary scientists to believe that its entire atmosphere is circulating around on a conveyor belt. This huge system of moving gas transports warm air from the southern hemisphere to Titans north pole and back again.
As on any body with an atmosphere, the direction and speed of the wind encountered at a single point can be related to the general atmospheric circulation. So by reproducing the winds encountered by Huygens during its parachute descent to the surface, planetary scientists have been able to improve their ideas about Titan.

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On May 12, 2007, Cassini completed its 31st flyby of Saturn's moon Titan, which the team calls T30. The radar instrument obtained this image showing the coastline and numerous island groups of a portion of a large sea, consistent with the larger sea seen by the Cassini imaging instrument.


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Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Like other bodies of liquid seen on Titan, this feature reveals channels, islands, bays, and other features typical of terrestrial coastlines, and the liquid, most likely a combination of methane and ethane, appears very dark to the radar instrument. What is striking about this portion of the sea compared to other liquid bodies on Titan is the relative absence of brighter regions within it, suggesting that the depth of the liquid here exceeds tens of meters. Of particular note is the presence of isolated islands, which follow the same direction as the peninsula to their lower right, suggesting that they may be part of a mountain ridgeline that has been flooded.
The image as shown is about 160 kilometres by 270 kilometres at 300-metre resolution. The image is centred near 70 degrees north latitude and 310 west longitude.

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 mission for NASA''s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.
The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .


-- Edited by Blobrana at 10:00, 2007-05-24

The Cassini spacecraft acquired this view of Titan during the T28 flyby on April 13, 2007. Titan's equatorial dark regions are visible in this view, along with faint, dark lineaments. Near the terminator are the dark, lake-like features identified in Cassini flybys early in 2007.
To the east of the lake-like features is a bright patch of clouds that likely consist of a mixture of methane and ethane.


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Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

This view of Titan is an orthographic reprojection centred on 27.4 degrees north latitude. An orthographic view is most like the view seen by a distant observer looking through a telescope.
The view was obtained using a filter sensitive to near-infrared light centred at 939 nanometers, allowing for observations of Titan's surface and lower atmosphere, added together. An image taken using a filter sensitive to visible light centred at 619 nanometers was then subtracted from the product, effectively removing the lower atmosphere contribution to the brightness values in the image, increasing image contrast and improving the visibility of surface features.
The Cassini spacecraft acquired this view with its narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometres from Titan. Image scale is 7 kilometres per pixel.

Researchers have identified molecules in the atmosphere of one of Saturns moons that are responsible for its smog-like haze.
The findings, published in the 11 May 2007 issue of Science, were gathered using the Cassini spacecraft, cooperative mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
The atmosphere of Titan is of great interest as it is the only one in the solar system remotely like that of Earth, containing a nitrogen-rich mix of gases.

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