Titan's North Polar Hood

The Cassini spacecraft examines Titan's north polar hood, the part of the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon appearing dark at the top of this image.

See PIA09739 and PIA08137 to learn more about Titan's atmosphere. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Titan. North on Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) is up. The southern pole of Titan is going into darkness, with the Sun advancing towards the north with each passing day. See PIA11603 and PIA11667 to learn more about the changing seasons in the Saturnian system. The upper layer of Titan's hazes is still illuminated by sunlight scattered off the planet.

The image was taken in visible violet light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 19, 2011. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 137,000 kilometers (85,000 miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 18 degrees. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute