PIA07238: Water Ice and Methane Springs
 Target Name:  Titan
 Is a satellite of:  Saturn
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens
 Spacecraft:  Huygens Probe
 Instrument:  Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer
 Product Size:  315 x 508 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  European Space Agency (ESA)
 Primary Data Set:  Cassini
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA07238.tif (160.4 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA07238.jpg (21.91 kB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:

A single Huygens Descent Imager/ Spectral Radiometer (DISR) instrument image shows two new features on the surface of Titan. A bright linear feature suggests an area where water ice may have been extruded onto the surface. Also visible are short, stubby dark channels that may have been formed by 'springs' of liquid methane rather than methane 'rain.'

The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer is one of two NASA instruments on the probe.

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-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Descent Imager/Spectral team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. For more information about the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer visit http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~kholso/.

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

Image Addition Date:
2005-01-21