Best Images Yet Of Saturn's Moon Titan

DoraLives writes "During recent commissioning observations of a new instrument designed for a completely different purpose, the European Southern Observatory managed to grab the best imagery yet of Saturn's largest moon. Although the imagery bears more than just a passing resemblance to some of the quainter maps of other planets there's no denying the superb, sub tenth arcsecond, resolution of the new images. And of course, if that's not good enough, they're sending a a little something to land on Titan next January. Should be interesting."

Comments

"Images"

[tronicum]

I refer Images to something where you can actually can see something. These look like rendered bit-stacks I remember from old intros. (plasma-effect).

Until this probe in January brings something where you can actually see something these pictures are useless like some radar-telescope probes from a "new found star" somebody might have found.

Re:"Images"

[piper-noiter]

Saw a cool show at the planetarium on the up coming Cassini, Huygens mission. One of the better planetarium shows I've seen.

Cassini will circle Saturn for a long time, 4 years I think, and then if it still works they will send it on a risky mission. My favorite was sending it through the large Cassini Gap in Saturn's rings. Think of the images it could collect of the rings at that range!

Then there is the ever popluar suiside mission into planet's dense center. Sending an orbiter hurling into the planet's atmosphere to be crushed while collecting data seems soooo 1990's.

My friend and I have a bet on the Huygens mission. Will the surface of Titan look more exciting than the surface of Mars? or about equal? hmmm.

Interesting

[Steve the Rocket Sci]

Considering the immense distance between Earth and Titan, it is incredible that we can use radar to see any surface detail at all. If the results from the ESA's Huygens probe are interesting enough, perhaps a Titan-dedicated mission with multiple entry probes and full radar mapping will be commissioned in the next decade.

Re:Interesting

[VanillaCoke420]

That would be great. Possible boats, u-boats, balloons, landers, even sample returns. Of course this wont happen anytime soon. :( I also want to see dedicated probes for Neptune and Uranus. To see those geysers on Triton up close would be excellent.

0 degree longitude

[zarniwhoop]

I noticed one of the images superimposed with latitude and longitudes. Who decides (and how) where the 0 degree longitude is on astronomical bodies?

dredging up the sedna debate

[circletimessquare]

looking at titan, i can't help but wonder why sedna or pluto/charon might be considered a planet, a peer of earth, while something like titan is a mere moon.. it is phenomenal, it is a planet in mind, and deserves that recognition

additionally, jupiter is not a peer of earth either

just a thought, but don't you think it's time to rework the nomenclature of orbitting bodies? especially as we dsicover more extrasolar orbitting bodies, perhaps in multiple star systems, perhaps with radical orbital arrangements

here's my 2 cents:

gas giant: anything mostly gas
planet: anything round and mostly solid with an atmosphere
moon: anything solid and round but without an atmosphere
asteroid: anything not round

and all of these classifications are regardless of what they orbit, or their size (although the sizes tend to follow natural upper and lower bounds due to planetary evolution)

so in this nomenclature, mercury is a moon, while titan is a planet

additionally, you could do some sort of indication like: earth is a primary system planet, while titan is a secondary system planet... mercury would be a primary system moon

one day we may find teriary systems in other solar systems

am i crazy?

it just seems to me titan deserves to be our peer, while pluto/ charon does not

and it's not thinking earth-centric that is motivating me, it is simply thinking that as we discover more and more planetary bodies, we need a naming system, even if just shorthand, that is more realistic: titan is no mere moon, and sedna/ pluto-charon are just not planets

Re:dredging up the sedna debate

[isopossu]

Actually both the Earth and Moon orbit the common center, which happens to locate inside the Earth, but not in the centre.

Maybe in the systems where the weight difference of planet and its moon is smaller, both orbit a point outside of both bodies. Maybe Pluto and Charon do this. Which one is the planet an which one the moon then?

Re:dredging up the sedna debate

[Scarblac]

Actually the Earth orbits the Sun. The Moon orbits the Earth which orbits the Sun. mmkay.

Actually, the moon's orbit around the sun is convex; the Sun's gravitational pull is larger than the Earth's. The moon also orbits the Sun, together with the Earth; they switch relative positions a few times per year. That's why the Moon and Earth are sometimes referred to as binary planets.

Re:dredging up the sedna debate

[Kiryat Malachi]

Of course, Pluto has an atmosphere, something that screws up your little attempt to knock it off the planetary list.

Food for Celestia :-)

[Jugalator]

This could be useful as texture map addons to Celestia, along with textures from Planet Portal, etc...

Also, don't miss this site for your amateur astronomy needs. :-)

Re:Didn't they...

[kalidasa]

They changed it to Jupiter because Trumbull was having a very hard time getting both a Jovian-looking planet and convincing looking rings. No CGI back in those days, remember? (2001 was released in 1968). I don't remember if that detail (about why they abandoned Saturn) is in Jerome Agel's *The Making of Kubrick's 2001* (0451071395) or Clarke's *Lost Worlds of 2001* (0451125363) - probably the latter, though. Thus the book 2010 is a sequel to the movie 2001, not the book 2001. (Except for one thing: in the movie 2001, you never hear the line "My God, it's full of stars!" - that's only in the book 2001.)

More evidence of oceans?

[amightywind]

These results are amazing. Notice that the thermal dark areas show clear embayment relationships to the brighter thermal areas. This is just what you would expect to see if the dark regions are liquid oceans and the bright regions are icy highlands.

Venus

[Yanray]

Couldn't this technology be used to effectively map volcanic movements of Venus? It does provide high resoution imaging through dense atmospheres. We could get some nice realtime imaging of Venusian volcanic flows.