A Three-Dimensional View of Titan's Surface Features from Cassini RADAR Stereogrammetry

Details A Three-Dimensional View of Titan's Surface Features from Cassini RADAR Stereogrammetry A Three-Dimensional View of Titan's Surface Features from Cassini RADAR Stereogrammetry

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.p11d..09k&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P11D-09

Mathematics

Logic

5419 Hydrology And Fluvial Processes, 5464 Remote Sensing, 5470 Surface Materials And Properties, 5480 Volcanism (6063, 8148, 8450), 6281 Titan

Scientific paper

As of the end of its four-year Prime Mission, Cassini has obtained 300-1500 m resolution synthetic aperture radar images of the surface of Titan during 19 flybys. The elongated image swaths overlap extensively, and ~2% of the surface has now been imaged two or more times. The majority of image pairs have different viewing directions, and thus contain stereo parallax that encodes information about Titan's surface relief over distances of ~1 km and greater. As we have previously reported, the first step toward extracting quantitative topographic information was the development of rigorous "sensor models" that allowed the stereo systems previously used at the USGS and JPL to map Venus with Magellan images to be used for Titan mapping. The second major step toward extensive topomapping of Titan has been the reprocessing of the RADAR images based on an improved model of the satellite's rotation. Whereas the original images (except for a few pairs obtained at similar orbital phase, some of which we have mapped previously) were offset by as much as 30 km, the new versions align much better. The remaining misalignments, typically <1 km, can be removed by a least-squares adjustment of the spacecraft trajectories before mapping, which also ensures that the stereo digital topographic models (DTMs) are made consistent with altimetry and SAR topography profiles. The useful stereo coverage now available includes a much larger portion of Titan's north polar lake country than we previously presented, a continuous traverse of high resolution data from the lakes to mid-southern latitudes, and widely distributed smaller areas. A remaining challenge is that many pairs of images are illuminated from opposite sides or from near-perpendicular directions, which can make image matching more difficult. We find that the high-contrast polarizing display of the stereo workstation at USGS provides a much clearer view of these unfavorably illuminated pairs than (for example) anaglyphs, and lets us supplement automatic image matching with interactive measurements where the former fails. We are collecting DTMs of all usable image pairs and will present the most interesting results. Examples of geologic questions that may be addressed are: What is the relation between Ganesa and surrounding features? Is it a dome or shield? Can the height of Titan's dunes be measured, and what is the relief of the bright "islands" that appear to divert the dunes? How high are the mountains of Xanadu and what gradients drive the channels between them? What are the relative and absolute height relations between seas and lakes of different types, and what does this tell us about the "hydro(carbono)logic" cycle of precipitation, evaporation, and surface and subsurface fluid flow?

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