Titan's topography, strange.... |
Titan's topography, strange.... |
Apr 12 2009, 12:44 PM
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#16
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 |
Recent article in Science by Zebker et al.:
Zebker et al. Science in press, "Size and Shape of Saturn's Moon Titan". doi: 10.1126/science.1168905 (published online April 2, 2009) Link to abstract (pay-for article): http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1168905 Article on spaceref discusses this paper: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27912 Figure 3 from the Science article is a global elevation map relative to barycenter. Key points of article:
"Xanadu seems to be systematically lower than other parts of the equatorial belt, and not uplifted like most mountainous areas on Earth." (quote from Fig. 3 caption in article) -Mike -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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Jan 12 2013, 02:28 AM
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#17
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Member Group: Members Posts: 754 Joined: 9-February 07 Member No.: 1700 |
All these years after the Huygens probe landed, I still wonder - what if Cassini had held on to the Huygens probe until it had pinpointed a lake? Could it have aimed Huygens accurately enough to splash into it? I know there are many reasons why the Huygens plunge needed to happen right away. It's just so tantalizing to imagine having a probe (or several) available this deep into the mission!
I don't want to drag this discussion off-topic. Perhaps this post can be moved to a better place if so. |
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Jan 13 2013, 12:55 AM
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#18
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Titan has many types of terrain: IR bright, IR dark brown (dunes), IR dark blue (methane-wet sand), 5-µm-bright material (evaporite / HC3N?), and the lakes and seas to name five.
It was a magnificent bit of serendipity to have Huygens enter right on the boundary between two terrain types, to give us high-resolution descent imaging of one (IR bright) and land directly on another (IR dark blue), showing us not only the nature of both of those with resolution greater than any of Cassini's instruments, but the geophysical nature of the boundary. And given that both the dunes and standing liquid have a profound degree of blah-ness to their relief, Huygen's landing site (HLS) would be a very hard act to top. It's easy to take the knowledge we have of the HLS - the channels, the pebbles, the wet sand, the methane release that followed landing - as a given and wish for more, but it was a bonanza I would hate to (hypothetically/magically) lose in exchange for imaging of the isotropic surface of a lake. Frankly, I think it was nearly perfect, given the single opportunity. |
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Jan 13 2013, 06:38 AM
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#19
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Member Group: Members Posts: 404 Joined: 5-January 10 Member No.: 5161 |
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