Mission description now up (new abbreviated format?): http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/files/T-75_508_v41.pdf
A more complete description of images (RGB composite + some near looks at Adiri - did the recent storm wash away any surface coatings?) on the CICLOPS Looking Ahead summary: http://www.ciclops.org/view/6763/Rev147
Mike, I beg your indulgence; been awhile since we've seen you exercise your PhD! Can you speculate on the chemical nature of the surface coatings that might have been washed away based (I assume) largely on their solubility in liquid methane @ 94K?
Of course, all bets are off if this was truly a methane monsoon; sheer mechanical force presumably would have been enough to scrub pretty much any transient surface deposits. But what if this was the equivalent of, say, a few cm of gentle terrestrial rain without wind? I suspect that we may have seen removal of 17 or so years of fallout products from atmospheric chemosynthesis.
Mr. McGuire: "I want to say one word to you. Just one word."
Benjamin: "Yes, sir."
Mr. McGuire: "Are you listening?"
Benjamin: "Yes, I am."
Mr. McGuire: "Plastics."
- The Graduate (1967)
(Actually, if I had to bet, it would be some type of polymeric product. Not necessarily tholin, but something else, maybe a highly colored contaminant. PAH's are a possibility, as are longer chain polyphenyls. You would need something that would be hydrocarbon soluble. Water ice (from the crust) and tholins are not soluble in hydrocarbons (methane/ethane).)
The really big question is when stuff gets "washed" do the highlands get brighter as the channels get darker?
Or do just the channels get darker?
Or do just the highlands get brighter?
Or do the highlands get darker and the channels get brighter?
That movie was far more prophetic than we knew at the time! Thanks, Mike.
Man...I think it's going to be a long time before we understand what's going on on Titan. (Global comment...)
Exceptionally fine Titan images from this flyby. Here's just one
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS67/N00171170.jpg
South polar detached hood/cap/whatever!
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawimagedetails/index.cfm?imageID=236696
those violet images look just weird http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawimagedetails/index.cfm?imageID=236663
Latest Titan images (right image) continue to show the Senkyo region returning to its appearance before (left image) the T72 arrow storm. Middle image from Dec 20 2010 shows the storm's effect (arrow) with both darkening and brightening albedo differences.
Good post Mike. Titan would have to be a very simple place if it could be understood entirely by analysing high/low and dark/bright. We are lucky to live on a world that is as complex as Titan, or more so. It may be a little simpler than Earth, but we should be ready for anything.
Excellent points Mike and Nigel ! Gets one thinking of what other correlations may exit. Interesting how Adiri was next in the path of the Arrow storm that inundated (blue outline) southern Belet (shown below, left image). The equatorial cloud pattern on images taken October 18th suggests storm continued its eastern march into Adiri encountering an upslope gradient. SAR topo measurements suggest a gain of 700 meters and Adiri bright spots tend to appear on the up-sloping terrain of the ridges. Using some of the cool maps in the text book "Titan from Cassini-Huygens" in the appendix there appears to be less correlation of the bright spots with RADAR backscatter values (surface roughness or reflective surfaces), surface brightness temperature (microwave thermal emissivity) or VIMS spectral units (the last shown in the figure below). With differing resolutions of these maps however the validity of the correlations is debatable.
EDIT: Sorry, but I just realized the Huygen's landing site was on the map and just had to put it in there (red + sign on the right).
An imaginary scene from the Huygens landing site following passage of the 'Arrow Storm'. PIA08118 was blended with a New Mexico thunderhead near Granite Gap and colorized in Photoshop.
Nice!
The T75 flyby produced Titan images that were one Saturn year (29.47 earth years) after the Voyager2 flyby in 1981. Although the filters and flyby orientation differs one can see similarity in Titan's appearance especially in the narrow dark northern band area.
Not only the filters were different, but the processing was obviously different. High pass filtering, etc. If you applied the same processing to the Voyager images today, they would look pretty similar to Cassini images. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ugordan/4835388489/sizes/l/in/photostream/'s one such Voyager 2 shot.
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