[X] My Assistant

[belleraphon1]

Titan T28 mission description is now available. Note grountracks displayed on pp 9-10.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/prod...description.pdf

[Juramike]

The T28 swath has an interesting feature in the bland zone between the Equatorial Sand Seas and the North Polar Lakes.



As the swath pulls away from Fensal, the area becomes one of really low contrast. Presumably we are looking at a landscape that has been buried in eons of atmospheric chemistry products brought down by seasonal rains. In the image below, there are alternating bands of dark medium and light medium RADAR reflecting surfaces. These are oriented roughly E-W and could be due to wind deposition of two different types of materials. (Think of huge fields of windblown snow or giant loess deposits). Also visible are bright white specks, these could be RADAR-bright rough ice monadnocks sticking out of the medium contrast schizzle. They are also oriented roughly E-W, which may also correspond to the local tectonic ridge alignment.

Red arrows indicate dunes that have formed alongside one of the partially buried ridges. It would be very interesting to see if these have the same VIMS signature as the dark brown unit of the Equatorial Sand Seas – or could they be dunes of a different material? They seem to have a slightly different aspect than the typical cat scratches, but this could be due to latitude or local meteorology differences.

In the zoomed in view in the middle, the deeply incised ridges are visible (especially in the orange boxes), but have been buried and almost swallowed up by deposited material. The tectonic ridges in this area appear different than those in the Equatorial Sand Seas. The ridges in this areaa appear more deeply carved by erosion instead of the rounder slightly more blobby "pearls on a string" look in the Sand Seas. Compare the aspect of these ridges with those from the T8 Belet-Shangri-La swath. (In the image, the ridge lines have been re-oriented for better comparison)

The entire mid-latitude landscape seems to be low contrast and uniform. Not a lot of exciting features seem to poke up through the schizzle.

Mid-latitudes of Titan: The Big Bland.

Who knows how many interesting features have been buried and hidden under this stuff?

-Mike