A Radar View of Titan
Explanation:
Where are Titan's craters?
Throughout our
Solar System's five billion-year history,
dangerous rocks and
chunks of ice have
continually slammed into planets and moons -
usually creating numerous long lasting
impact craters.
When the robot
spacecraft Cassini swooped past
Saturn's moon
Titan
last month, however,
radar images showed few craters.
One such image, spanning 75 kilometers across, is
shown above.
The
imaged structures are not yet understood, but may involve some sort of
flows.
Titan is already known to be an unusual moon, sporting a
thick atmosphere, large size,
small amounts of
organic compounds.
Craters are surely created on all surfaces in the Solar System,
but might be destroyed later, as on
Earth and Jupiter's moon
Io.
How
craters
are destroyed on Titan remains a topic of speculation,
but might become better understood by consideration of data returned by
future flybys of Cassini and by the
probe Huygens that will descend toward
Titan's surface in December.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
