Cassini Takes Sharper Look At Xanadu

SATURN DAILY

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Xanadu seen by Cassini's radar. Full size image. Image credit: NASA/JPL

by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (SPX) May 05, 2006
This image of Titan from the Cassini spacecraft's Synthetic Aperture Radar shows the southwestern area of a feature called Xanadu (at bottom right). The area is bright because it reflects the radio wavelengths used to make this radar images.

Cassini's instrument captured the image during its flyby of Saturn's giant moon on April 30.

Xanadu, one of the most prominent features on Titan that first was detected by ground-based observations, remains a mystery.

This radar image reveals details previously unseen, however, such as numerous curvy features that may indicate fluid flows. Linear dark streaks visible in radar-dark areas are dune fields, which have been seen in previous Cassini radar images.

Near the center of the image is a prominent circular feature named Guabonito, which is about 90 kilometers (56 miles) in diameter. It might be an impact crater or a cryovolcanic caldera.

If it is an impact structure, the absence of an ejecta blanket suggests the feature has been highly eroded, like some impact structures on Earth - or, it has been buried by the dune fields.

Other radar-bright areas (top left and top right) appear to be topographically high and might act as obstacles, diverting the dunes around them.

SATURN DAILY

Scientists Compile Huygens Descent Movies

Tucson AZ (SPX) May 05, 2006
University of Arizona scientists have built two movies from data collected during the Huygens probe's descent to Titan's surface on Jan. 14, 2005. The movies show the operation of the NASA-funded Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer camera during its descent and after touchdown.

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