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News Release 09-150
Storm Clouds Over Titan
Ground-based telescope captures first visual images of storm clouds over the tropics of Saturn's largest moon
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Gemini North infrared image of Saturn and Titan (at about 6 o'clock position). Image obtained on May 7, 2009 (5:31 UTC), using the Altair adaptive optics system with the Near-infrared imager (NIRI). Color composite image made using data from three infrared filters (K' [2.0-2.1 microns], h210 [2.12 mircon narrowband], and bracket gamma [2.17 micron narrowband]), field of view is about 40 arcseconds across. Note to photo editors: The full-resolution images are at the native pixel dimensions of the data and are not available at higher resolution without resampling. At the edges of Saturn's ring, the F-ring is faintly visible. The F-ring was discovered in images from the Pioneer 11 spacecraft in 1979 and is normally not apparent in images taken with ground-based telescopes. Also apparent are several of Saturn's smaller moons.
Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/Henry Roe, Lowell Observatory/Emily Schaller, Insitute for Astronomy, University of Hawai'i
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Astronomers Henry Roe of Lowell Observatory and Mike Brown of Caltech discuss recently announced observations of storm clouds in the tropics of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.
Credit: Lowell Observatory, National Science Foundation
Gemini North adaptive optics image of Titan showing storm feature (bright area). Titan is about 0.8 arcsecond across in this 2.12 micron near-infrared image obtained on April 14, 2008 (UTC). Note to photo editors: This image is provided at full pixel resolution and is not available at higher resolution due to the nature of this data.
Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/Henry Roe, Lowell Observatory/Emily Schaller, Insitute for Astronomy, University of Hawai'i
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (8 KB)
Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.