Titan's Elusive Lakes? Properties and Context of Dark Spots in Cassini TA Radar DataTitan's atmospheric methane abundance suggests the likelihood of a surface reservoir of methane and a surface sink for its photochemical products, which might also be predominantly liquid. Although large expanses of obvious hydrocarbon seas have not been unambiguously observed, a number of rather radar-dark spots up to approximately 30 km across are observed in the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data acquired during the Cassini TA encounter on October 26th 2004. Here we review the properties and setting of these dark spots to explore whether these may be hydrocarbon lakes.
Document ID
20050170958
Acquisition Source
Headquarters
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Lorenz, R. D. (Arizona Univ. Tucson, AZ, United States)
Elachi, C. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Stiles, B. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
West, R. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Janssen, M. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Lopes, R. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Stofan, E. (Proxemy Research, Inc. Rectortown, VA, United States)
Paganelli, F. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Wood, C. (Planetary Science Inst. Managua, Nicaragua)
Kirk, R. (Geological Survey Flagstaff, AZ, United States)
Date Acquired
September 7, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2005
Publication Information
Publication: Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVI, Part 12