Cassini Halloween treat: Titan glows in the dark
Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 21:00
in Astronomy & Space
A literal shot in the dark by imaging cameras on NASA's Cassini spacecraft has yielded an image of a visible glow from Titan, emanating not just from the top of Titan's atmosphere, but also -- surprisingly -- from deep in the atmosphere through the moon's haze. A person in a balloon in Titan's haze layer wouldn't see the glow because it's too faint -- something like a millionth of a watt. Scientists were able to detect it with Cassini because the spacecraft's cameras are able to take long-exposure images.