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Titan Flyby (T-106): Bouncing Radio Waves Off Titan’s Lakes (Again!)

This colorized mosaic from NASA's Cassini mission shows the most complete view yet of Titan's northern land of lakes and seas. Saturn's moon Titan is the only world in our solar system other than Earth that has stable liquid on its surface. The liquid in Titan's lakes and seas is mostly methane and ethane. This image was released on Dec. 12, 2013.

The T-106 flyby presents another opportunity to bounce signals off the surface of the northern lakes, this time on an outbound encounter. Known as a bistatic scattering experiment, the results can be used to reveal details about the nature and composition of the surface and how those characteristics vary from place to place. This observation will primarily cover the eastern region of Kraken Mare, the largest body of liquid on Titan.

Date
Oct. 24, 2014

Altitude
629 miles (1,013 km)

Speed
13,000 mph (5.6 km/sec)