Titan’s north pole in summertime

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this view of bright methane clouds drifting in the summer skies of Saturn’s moon Titan, along with dark hydrocarbon lakes and seas clustered around the north pole.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.

Unlike earlier in Cassini’s mission, most of the surface in the moon’s northern high latitudes is now illuminated by the Sun. Summer solstice in the Saturn system occurred on 24 May 2017.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 9 June 2017, using a spectral filter that preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centred at 938 nanometres. Cassini obtained the view at a distance of about 507,000 kilometres (315,000 miles) from Titan.


Saturn: Exploring the Ringed Planet

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