New images from NASA have captured the beautiful golden reflection of the sun on the polar sea of Saturn’s largest moon، Titan.
It is the latest image from a collaborative four year mission studying the Saturnine system.
Flying by Titan in August، NASA’s Cassini spacecraft snapped the photo، which shows sunlight reflecting off Titan’s swirling surface. In the past، the spacecraft has captured separate images of the polar seas and the sun shining against them، but this is the first time both have been see together in one view، the agency stated.
The mirror-like reflection، known as the specular point، is in the south of Titan’s largest sea، Kraken Mare – just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea. To the human eye، this would appear as a haze but through Cassini’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS)، “real color information” is provided in wavelengths that correspond to atmospheric windows، making the moon’s surface visible.
The sun glinting off the hydrocarbon seas of Saturn's moon Titan. Amazing world.
http://t.co/iW0uNVSGYI pic.twitter.com/CdFLzRTBGw
— Mark Hilverda (@markhilverda) October 31، 2014
Titan is the only other body in the solar system known to have a liquid surface like Earth. Instead of water، the lakes and seas are made up of hydrocarbons، organic compounds that also rain down from the clouds that cover the moon.
For this reason، scientists think that because Earth and Titan share so much in atmospheric composition، the Saturn’s moon might hold clues as to how the primitive Earth evolved into a life-bearing planet.
 
Source: RT.com / NASA.gov