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This mosaic of image swaths from Cassini's Titan Radar Mapper, taken with the synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), features a large dark region several hundred kilometers across that differs in several significant ways from potential lakes observed on Titan. The mosaic is near the south pole, centered near 82 degrees south, 205 degrees west. It includes data from Titan passes T39, T55, T57, T58, and T59, collected between December 2007 and July 2009.
Science highlights for this flyby included a RADAR 'scrub' to get more detailed views of the Shangri-La dunes. The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) observation was near equatorial, covering the features Dilmun, Adiri and Belet. The SAR track paralleled and overlapped the T-8 flyby dataset, which should provide a good stereo imaging opportunity over the Belet sand dunes as well as expanded coverage of Shangri-La and Belet.
The Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) was taking measurements along with RADAR, observing the night side wake at low and near equatorial southern latitudes. This was the only southern equatorial wake observation in the mission.
The outbound leg of T-61 was a very good opportunity for optical instruments because the phase angle was about 10 degrees. Just after the RADAR observations at closest approach, the Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) observed the southern hemisphere at longitudes similar to those observed at T-57, T-58, T-59 and T-60. However, this flyby is the best of the group. The resolution can be as good as 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel at the beginning of the observation.
Date
Aug. 25, 2016
Altitude
603 miles (970 km)
Speed
13,400 mph (6.0 km/sec)
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Last Updated
Jan 24, 2024
Editor
NASA Science Editorial Team
