[meteorite-list] Cassini's Radar Spots Giant Crater on Titan

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Feb 16 20:14:31 2005
Message-ID: <200502170114.j1H1EFj02170_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2005-029

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Carolina Martinez (818) 354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

News Release: 2005-029 February 16, 2005

Cassini's Radar Spots Giant Crater on Titan

A giant impact crater the size of Iowa was spotted on Saturn's
moon Titan by NASA's Cassini radar instrument during Tuesday's
Titan flyby.

Cassini flew within 1,577 kilometers (980 miles) of Titan's
surface and its radar instrument took detailed images of the
surface. This is the third close Titan flyby of the mission,
which began in July 2004, and only the second time the radar
instrument has examined Titan. Scientists see some things that
look familiar, along with scenes that are completely new.

The new radar images are available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .

"It's reassuring to look at two parts of Titan and see similar
things," said Dr. Jonathan Lunine, Cassini interdisciplinary
scientist from the University of Arizona, Tucson. "At the same
time, there are new and strange things."

This flyby is the first time that Cassini's radar and the imaging
camera overlapped. This overlap in coverage should be able to
provide more information about the surface features than either
technique alone. The 440-kilometer-wide (273-mile) crater
identified by the radar instrument was seen before with Cassini's
imaging cameras, but not in this detail.

A second radar image released today shows features nicknamed "cat
scratches". These parallel linear features are intriguing, and
may be formed by winds, like sand dunes, or by other geological
processes.

On Thursday, Cassini will conduct its first close flyby of
Saturn's icy moon Enceladus (en-SELL-uh-duss) at a distance of
approximately 1,180 kilometers (730 miles). Enceladus is one of
the most reflective objects in the solar system, so bright that
its surface resembles freshly fallen snow.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. JPL designed,
developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

                               -end-
Received on Wed 16 Feb 2005 08:14:13 PM PST