[X] My Assistant

[Juramike]

T43 Mission description is now up!

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/prod...description.pdf

Some highlights:

• Radiometry of western Fensal-Aztlan (will fill in a big chunk of the radiometry map)
• SAR RADAR of Tui Regio in Xanadu and Tortola Facula as well as a very interesting piece of terrian in NE Shangri-La. (Lotsa bright-dark boundaries, maybe some cool islands, dunes, "shallower" areas ) Also some imaging over Dilmun.
• Cloud imaging by VIMS and ISS observations

-Mike

[titanicrivers]

Mike’s negative image enhanced views and ‘natural light’ images of the detached haze layer(s) (upper left in my composite image below) and the ‘cow lick’ top portion suggests we’re looking at the haze layers near Titan’s N polar active region. As the T43 images are relatively low resolution it helps to look other images from other flybys of the detached haze in the N polar region in much higher resolution and dedicated to showing the details. In the 3/16/06 view (lower left) the ‘cow lick’ is really unruly and perhaps some 5 atmospheric haze layers are visible. The darker polar hood also shows in that view. In the extreme color enhanced view of 3/31/05 (lower right) some 10 layers are visible. Its fun to look way back to the Voyager 1 discovery images of the detached haze layer (the upper right 8/23/81 image) and see similar features especially the distinct detached layer and the dark polar hood. It will be interesting to watch these seasonal atmospheric phenomena change as Titan's northern spring progresses over next 5 years. Of interest the Voyager 1 flyby occurred about 27 years ago about 2.5 years less than a Saturn ‘year’ and so that image shows Titan as it might appear to us 2.5 years from now. Past research with Hubble Space Telescope images from the period 1990-2004 by Ralph D. Lorenz, Mark T. Lemmon, Peter H. Smith and G. W. Lockwood suggest we will see the N polar hood disappear and one develop in the South polar region over the next 7-10 years.