Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Explanation:
Why would the surface of Titan light up with a blinding flash?
The reason: a
sunglint from liquid seas.
Saturn's moon
Titan has numerous smooth
lakes of methane that, when the angle is right,
reflect sunlight as if they were mirrors.
Pictured here in false-colour, the
robotic Cassini spacecraft
orbiting Saturn imaged the
cloud-covered Titan last summer in different bands of cloud-piercing
infrared light.
This
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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