1 min read
The colorful globe of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, passes in front of the planet and its rings in this true color snapshot from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The combined images were obtained on May 21, 2011.
On this high-altitude encounter, the imaging science subsystem (ISS) performed high-resolution observations along Titan’s leading hemisphere at high southern latitudes, including a late view of Ontario Lacus before the Sun set for southern winter. This was one of ISS’ so-called “10-pointer” flybys, i.e. one of the two scientifically most significant Titan flybys for ISS during the Solstice mission. ISS also rode along with the composite infrared spectrometer’s (CIRS’) inbound high phase angle observations and CIRS’ outbound observations over Titan's anti-Saturnian hemisphere at low phase angles. This encounter was one of the last views of Titan’s high southern latitudes. The visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) rode along with ISS to look for lakes in the South Pole area.
Date
Jan. 30, 2012
Altitude
19,343 miles (31,131 km)
Speed
12,000 mph (5.4 km/sec)
Share
Details
Last Updated
Jan 24, 2024
Editor
NASA Science Editorial Team
