Two-Tone Titan
Date: 16 June 2004
Satellite: Cassini
Depicts: Titan
Copyright: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Cassini's finely-tuned vision reveals hazes high in the skies over Titan in this narrow angle camera image taken by the Cassini spacecraft on 22 May 2004. Here the northern hemisphere is notably brighter than the southern hemisphere. This trait was noticed in images returned by the Voyager spacecraft, but the effect is presently reversed, North to South, as Titan is currently experiencing opposite seasons from those during the Voyager epoch 23 years ago.
The image was taken from a distance of 21.7 million kilometres from Saturn through a filter sensitive to strong absorption by methane gas (centered at 889 nanometres). The image scale is 129 kilometres per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
