Pretty

[aesmael]

That there is Saturn and its largest moon, Titan. Saturn looks pretty big for something almost a million kilometres away, doncha think? You may not be able to see it in this picture, but there is a line of bright dots along the rings, some of Saturn's other moons.


Hopefully that will show up clearly enough. You might also notice Titan is fuzzy around the edges, that's its atmosphere, even thicker than Earth's. Well, why not, it is nearly half the size of our planet. In fact, like Venus Titan's clouds never lift so the only way we know what lies beneath them is through radar observations such as those made by the Cassini probe currently hanging around Saturn and its moons. If you were to strip away that haze it might look something like this:

I do find Titan and most other small bodies endlessly  fascinating, but knowledge has moved on so fast the past few years I feel quite lost to catch up.

Ahwell, bye for now.
^_^