Updated Titan Map Options

[David]

The word you are looking for is "playa"
tty

Playas are typically a bit drier than what I was imagining. The "desert" regions might equally be characterized as playa.

[ngunn]

mudflats?

[Juramike]

How about a "goo-flat"?

Methane rain bring down organic shizzle where it accumulates into masses/drifts/globs on the surface. Without a major flooding event it will sit and get coated in "bright material" or other atmospheric coatings.

Picture an on Earth full of shallow water like a flooded bayou. Then frogs lay oodles and oodles of humungous egg masses all over the place. As the water evaporates (or drains away) the gelatinous gooey egg masses are revealed on the surface. Imagine walking around with jiggling, gross, yukky masses forming a rough terrain as far as the eye can see.

I imagine the Titanian "goo-flat" would look like that.

(Slightly RADAR rough, ISS/VIMS would look like brighter material - definitely not dark blue ice sands nor dark brown dune sands)

[[Not a place for a romantic holiday]].

-Mike

P.S. Does anyone know what Death Valley (Badwater with the salt crystals) would look like by SAR? Would it appear roughish?

[JRehling]

P.S. Does anyone know what Death Valley (Badwater with the salt crystals) would look like by SAR? Would it appear roughish?

Funnily enough, Death Valley is shown on the Wikipedia page for SAR.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2...-valley-sar.jpg

Looks somewhat Huygens-like to me!

[Juramike]

Amazing! It does look pretty similar!

It took a few twists and turns with Google Earth to realize that this is of the northern (dune) part of Death Valley.

Unfortunately, Badwater is just to the SSW from the lowest part of the image. I was wondering if the knobby little salt incrustations ('bout 10-20 inches across if I remember correct) of Devil's Golfcourse (near Badwater) would show up and similar to Cassini SAR of the Temperate zones.

So close....

-Mike

[rlorenz]

P.S. Does anyone know what Death Valley (Badwater with the salt crystals) would look like by SAR? Would it appear roughish?

Highly variable, as it turns out (as the image posted shows).
Some of the very saline salt flats at Death Valley buckle on
scales larger than the radar wavelength and thus are very rough and hence bright ;
ditto the very rubbly Devils's Golfcourse or whatever it is called.
Then you have really flat things like Racetrack playa which acts like a mirror
(even more so when wet) and thus appears radar dark...

[scalbers]

Greetings,

Thought I'd mention a slight cleanup on the Titan map that I've now posted at this URL:

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#TITAN

One can keep fiddling with this thing for quite a while...

[CAP-Team]

Steve, isn't your map aligned in a different way other maps have been submitted? I can't overlay your map onto previous maps.

[scalbers]

Cap-Team - this is hard for me to say. This should be the same as my previous iteration. It is centered on 180 degrees longitude and is a cylindrical equidistant projection if that helps you to overlay it.

[Juramike]

I created a graphic showing currently available north polar RADAR swaths that dip partially into the Equatorial Sand Sea.
This is adapted from the graphic in Mitchell et al IOF 2007 Abstract 6042 "Titan's North Polar Lakes as Observed by Cassini RADAR: An Update." (Abstract freely NO LONGER available here. )

I've been using this to help make RADAR composites of Equatorial Sand Sea Basins:



-Mike

[Juramike]

The Planetary Photojournal has release a new ISS Mosaic of Titan today! PIA08399.
Available at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08399

I have taken all the Equatorial RADAR swath sections and overlaid them onto this new Mosaic:



Enjoy!

-Mike

[belleraphon1]

Nice map. Mike.... thanks.

And we have your plots on the south polar projection....
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=102003
Will be very interesting to see what ALL the instruments reveal there.

Been reviewing the literature on clouds and hydrocarbon lakes and Titan climate models. What CHANGES will we see in the future....will comment later.

A world-view is slowly beginning to develop.

Craig

[Phil Stooke]

Juramike - post 115: go through LPI instead:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/icysat2007/pdf/6042.pdf

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

This is the new radar map of the north pole added to the new ISS map:



and here's the northern hemisphere from that map in polar (equidistant azimuthal) projection.



Phil

[ugordan]

Great stuff, Phil!

I don't suppose there's a slightly less compressed version of the cylindrical map to be had?