T-70: The Closest Flyby
The Cassini spacecraft looks at the dark side of Saturn's largest moon. The narrowing circle of light surrounding Titan is produced by sunlight scattering through Titan's atmosphere.
T-70: The Closest Flyby
Cassini flew to within a mere 880 kilometers (547 miles) of Titan's surface during the T-70 flyby, the lowest Titan flyby in the entire mission. The cloud-skimming altitude and orientation (closest approach was in the dayside ionosphere) made this the absolute top priority flyby for the magnetometer (MAG) team, which is searching for evidence of a possible Titanian magnetic field. The flyby ended on a high note as the ultra violet imaging spectrograph (UVIS) instrument captured a stellar occultation outbound from Titan.
Titan Flyby at a Glance
Date
June 21, 2010
Altitude
547 miles (880 km)
Speed
13,000 mph (5.9 km/sec)
