Infrared images of Titan

Infrared images of Titan observed on Feb. 2, 7, and 8, 2006 with the Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS) on Gemini North. The images in the first row (a) are at 2.027-2.037 microns, where Titan’s atmosphere is nearly transparent and surface features are thought to be revealed clearly The second row of images (b) cover 2.060 -2.070 microns, where the atmosphere is less transparent and absorption by haze and liquid methane could be influential). The images in the third row (c), made from a Mercator map of observations by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) (Barnes et al. 2008) correspond to views of the surface of Titan from Earth at the times of the Gemini observations. Major geologic features (marked by A, B, C, D, E, and F) on the NIFS images are seen to occur at the same places on the VIMS images. The pairs of images in the top two rows illustrate the difficulty of detecting temporal atmospheric effects such as variable haze and localized methane drizzle.