PIA06440: View from Titan's Surface
 Target Name:  Titan
 Is a satellite of:  Saturn
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens
 Spacecraft:  Huygens Probe
 Instrument:  Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer
 Product Size:  504 x 718 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  University of Arizona
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA06440.tif (362.5 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA06440.jpg (21 kB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:

Images from the European Space Agency's Huygens probe descent imager/spectral radiometer side-looking imager and from the medium resolution imager, acquired after landing, were merged to produce this image.

The horizon's position implies a pitch of the imager/spectral radiometer, nose-upward, by 1 to 2 degrees with no measurable roll. "Stones" in the foreground are 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) in size, presumably made of water ice, and these lie on a darker, finer-grained substrate. A region with a relatively low number of rocks lies between clusters of rocks in the foreground and the background and matches the general orientation of channel-like features in the panorama of PIA06439). The scene evokes the possibility of a dry lakebed.

The Huygens probe was delivered to Saturn's moon Titan by the Cassini spacecraft, which is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. NASA supplied two instruments on the probe, the descent imager/spectral radiometer and the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer.

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 mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Image Credit:
ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2005-11-30