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Taking advantage of the capabilities of an imaging instrument aboard the Cassini spacecraft, NASA produced some of the clearest and most detailed views of Saturn's icy moon, Titan. The six images in the collection are composed of 13 years of images obtained in infrared by Cassini's VIMS (Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer) instrument and represent a wide variety of lighting and visualization conditions. during Cassini's mission. The images combine the colors red, green and blue and reveal the incredible variety of Titan's surface. They are by far the best representation of how Titan might appear to the casual observer if we remove the foggy atmosphere of the moon.
"Observing the surface of Titan in the visible region of the spectrum is difficult because of the moon's haze.This is mainly because small particles called aerosols in the upper atmosphere of Titan strongly scatter visible light. But the surface of Titan can be more easily imaged in some infrared "windows" – infrared wavelengths where scattering and absorption of light are much lower. Instrument VIMS excelled, separating the haze to get clear images of Titan's surface. "
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and is the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere. Titan is also the only place known to have liquids in the form of rain, river, lakes and seas. The terrestrial liquid cycle makes Titan a promising place for extraterrestrial life.
Until NASA's Cassini mission, we knew very little about Titan and its atmosphere. Cassini mapped Titan's surface, studied its thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, and transformed our vision of this remarkable world.
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