This image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows three moons — Rhea (top), Titan and Mimas (bottom). Titan appears fuzzy because we only see its cloud layers and light refracts within its atmosphere, extending the crescent. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.The three moons shown here — Titan (3,200 miles or 5,150 kilometres across), Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometres across), and Rhea (949 miles or 1,527 kilometres across) — show marked contrasts. Titan, the largest moon in this image, appears fuzzy because we only see its cloud layers. And because Titan’s atmosphere refracts light around the moon, its crescent “wraps” just a little further around the moon than it would on an airless body. Rhea (upper left) appears rough because its icy surface is heavily cratered. And a close inspection of Mimas (centre bottom), though difficult to see at this scale, shows surface irregularities due to its own violent history.
This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Titan. North on Titan is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 25, 2015.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (2.0 million kilometres) from Titan where the image scale is 75 miles (121 kilometres) per pixel. Mimas was 1.9 million miles (3.1 million kilometres) away with an image scale of 11.4 miles (18.4 kilometers) per pixel, while Rhea was 2.2 million miles (3.5 million kilometres) away with an image scale of 13.1 miles (21.1 kilometres) per pixel.
NASA officials announced that the agency will move forward with the development of a plutonium-powered robotic quadcopter drone to explore Saturn’s moon Titan, a hazy world covered with dunes and methane lakes that scientists say is reminiscent of the ancient Earth.
Titan, the largest of Saturn’s more than 60 moons, has surprisingly intense rainstorms, according to research by a team of UCLA planetary scientists and geologists. Although the storms are relatively rare — they occur less than once per Titan year, which is 29 and a half Earth years — they occur much more frequently than the scientists expected.
A new analysis incorporating data from the Cassini mission suggests Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus may host a habitable environment in its sub-surface ocean.
