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The Cassini spacecraft reveals Titan's upper-most atmospheric hazes, creating the appearance of a halo around Saturn's largest moon.
On this flyby Titan was in the pre-midnight region of Saturn's magnetosphere, and the spacecraft's trajectory crossed over this moon's south pole.
For only the third time during a Titan flyby, the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) was the primary instrument. During the flyby the instrument collected a full sampling of the inbound interaction region inside of 12 Titan radii. CAPS also took part in a combined observation with the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) at closest approach of Titan's ionosphere.
INMS made a prime observation on the night side of Titan at high Southern latitudes. This was one of two high Southern latitude passes that will help fill in the latitude coverage of Titan's atmosphere.
In addition, a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) swath ran parallel to observations in the T55-58 southern hemisphere mapping sequence covering south polar terrain.
Date
July 24, 2009
Altitude
593 miles (955 km)
Speed
13,400 mph (6.0 km/sec)
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Last Updated
Nov 06, 2024
Editor
NASA Science Editorial Team
