Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Virtual flyover of Saturn's moon Titan by Flagstaff team


New flyover maps of Titan show the 3-D topography and height of the 1,200-meter (4,000-foot) mountain tops, the north polar lake country, the vast dunes more than 100 meters (300 feet) high that crisscross the moon, and the thick flows that may have oozed from possible ice volcanoes.

The topographic maps were made from stereo pairs of radar images. They are available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini.

Cassini radar team member Randy Kirk with the Astrogeology Science Center at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz., created the maps. The maps were unveiled at last weeks Lunar & Planetary Science Conference in Houston.

[this post is drawn from NASA material]