Rev 141: Titan, distant view after the storm Options

[ugordan]

I took the two observations you mentioned - the 2009 one is available at the PDS - and made a flicker gif. CB3 stacked images divided by a MT1 frame in both cases. 50% original resolution, though not much detail is lost due to atmospheric scattering.



I don't know how many of the other subtle albedo changes are due to haze differences (whether in MT1 or closer to the ground in CB3 frames), but the Senkyo change is indeed compelling.

[Decepticon]

Ok that's exciting! WOW!

[Juramike]

From the Rev 143 Looking Ahead article: http://www.ciclops.org/view/6681/Rev143

"Imaging scientists will be looking for clouds across the sub-Saturn hemisphere of Titan, as well as additional surface changes that may have occurred as a result of the large "Arrow Storm" that was seen in late September."

I'll take that as confirmation that this surface change is considered real.

[titanicrivers]

From the Rev 143 Looking Ahead article: http://www.ciclops.org/view/6681/Rev143


I'll take that as confirmation that this surface change is considered real.

Hard to know! The word 'additional' also appears in the Rev 142 Looking Ahead article and this is before the Dec 20th images that clearly showed the S Senkyo change. Its possible those smaller Dec 5 images did show something although not in the same place as the 310-330 longitude region was beyond the terminator in the unlit portion of Titan.

[titanicrivers]

Another attempt to more precisely locate the September 27, 2010, T72 'arrow storm' cloud tops

[titanicrivers]

It is interesting to compare the apparent T72 storm Senkyo changes to those noted in the S Polar region of Titan following the large 2004 polar storms (see http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA11147 ) The image below compares the two regions to the same scale. The new S polar lakes that appeared are indicated in the white oval. The most obvious Senkyo change (darker triangular area) is from a much lower resolution image and its composition is still uncertain at this point.

[titanicrivers]

While talking about the S Polar storm and subsequent appearance of lakes in above post I was curious what the Cassini flyby (Ta) saw in the raw images from Oct 2004. One of the best (taken Oct 25, 2004) is shown below (left image panel A) and compared with those of Schaller et al had taken two days before (Oct 23 panel 'B') with Keck adaptive optics. This polar storm was massive (see the Oct 8 Keck image) and was rapidly dissipating when Cassini flew by. Placing a celestia grid to locate the storm residual cloud puts it over the precise area where the lakes were noted in 2005 (see polar projection figure right) suggesting the October 2004 storm was the source of the new lakes.
The interesting Schaller, Brown, Roe and Bouchez paper can be found here.
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/papers/ps/largecloud.pdf

[volcanopele]

I do believe we *cough* strongly suggested that in our 2009 paper.

Stayed tuned to this channel in the near-future as certainly this story isn't over...

[titanicrivers]

I do believe we *cough* strongly suggested that in our 2009 paper.

HA! I was gonna preface my last post with 'due apologies to VP for the rehash'! I haven't read your full paper....can you give me the link. Thanks!

edit: I believe this is the paper!
http://ciclops.org/media/sp/2009/5480_12560_0.pdf

Nice work!

[volcanopele]

Thanks for the link actually. It used to be that we had so few papers that I could keep these things straight, what info is in what paper. Let's just say that this is no longer the case... We hint at the connection between the flooding of Arrakis Planitia and the October 2004 storm in the 2009 paper, but we will be making a bigger point of it soon.

[titanicrivers]

New (taken Jan 21, 2011) Titan images cover the area of possible change in S Senkyo. The photo is taken from 3.437M km however and so have much less resolution than the Dec 20th 2010 or Mar 21, 2009 images that suggest a change in surface albedo (see posts #’s 13 and 16 above). The darker region near 325W and – 20 S is not very visible at least in my enhanced image. Next months (Rev 145 T74) Titan flyby hopefully will include high resolutions of the Senkyo area* as storm changes may be vanishing if liquids do not remain on the surface for very long.
*Edit: Approx WAC camera view of Senyko on Feb 18 at 22hr just past closest approach on right; courtesy the SSS.

[titanicrivers]

Here is an image that puts a constraint on the appearance of the apparent albedo change in the S Senyko region. The raw image was taken on September 13th 2010 (just 2 weeks before the T72 storm images). Although relatively low in resolution the region of possible change appears a fairly uniform bright albedo (arrow) suggesting any changes occurred after that date.

[titanicrivers]

Just for fun: N00165573 animated overlay on the ISS basemap of S. Senkyo.

[titanicrivers]

Latest Cassini (CL1 CB3) views of Senkyo show less dark albedo change than in December. Hopefully closer views later this month should show more detail and possibly residual surface changes.

[titanicrivers]

. . . but we will be making a bigger point of it soon.

As VP has mentioned he and colleagues will be saying more about their observations on the surface effects of the T72 storm (in up coming LPSC 2011 meeting). The abstracts for the meeting are available on the meeting website http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2011/?view=abstracts including Turtle, Perry et al report on T72 arrow storm effect in the Belet area of Titan. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2011/pdf/1459.pdf