Subtle Titan

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Caption:

Only a sharp and careful eye can make out the subtle variations in Titan's clouds when viewed in visible light. However, these subtle features sometimes become more readily apparent when imaged at other wavelengths of light. This infrared image clearly reveals a band around the Titan's north pole.

Cassini scientists are regularly monitoring Titan, hoping to understand more about Titan's dense atmosphere and clouds.

This view looks toward the leading side of Titan. North on Titan is up and rotated 31 degrees to the left. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 26, 2014 using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 889 nanometers.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.5 million miles (2.4 million kilometers) from Titan. Image scale is 9 miles (14 kilometers) per pixel.

Background Info:

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

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