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High Resolution Camera for Mapping Titan SurfaceTitan, Saturn's largest moon, has a dense atmosphere and is the only object besides Earth to have stable liquids at its surface. The Cassini/Huygens mission has revealed the extraordinary breadth of geological processes shaping its surface. Further study requires high resolution imaging of the surface, which is restrained by light absorption by methane and scattering from aerosols. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) onboard the Cassini spacecraft has demonstrated that Titan's surface can be observed within several windows in the near infrared, allowing us to process several regions in order to create a geological map and to determine the morphology. Specular reflections monitored on the lakes of the North Pole show little scattering at 5 microns, which, combined with the present study of Titan's northern pole area, refutes the paradigm that only radar can achieve high resolution mapping of the surface. The present data allowed us to monitor the evolution of lakes, to identify additional lakes at the Northern Pole, to examine Titan's hypothesis of non-synchronous rotation and to analyze the albedo of the North Pole surface. Future missions to Titan could carry a camera with 5 micron detectors and a carbon fiber radiator for weight reduction.
Document ID
20120015821
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Other
External Source(s)
Authors
Reinhardt, Bianca
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 26, 2013
Publication Date
May 1, 2011
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
Cassini
Titan
mapping

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