{"id":5575,"date":"2013-05-16T08:26:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T12:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2013\/05\/a-topographic-map-of-titan\/"},"modified":"2023-06-23T11:28:56","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T15:28:56","slug":"a-topographic-map-of-titan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2013\/05\/a-topographic-map-of-titan\/","title":{"rendered":"A Topographic Map of Titan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Global<\/a>
NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/ASI\/JHUAPL\/Cornell\/Weizmann<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Cassini team has released a global topographic map of Saturn’s moon Titan<\/a>. What makes this map interesting is the fact that, due to its thick atmosphere, Titan can only be mapped by radar during Cassini’s close flybys. As a result, only half of its surface has been imaged, and only 11 percent has topography data. For this map, the remainder was, well, extrapolated:<\/p>\n

Lorenz’s team used a mathematical process called splining\u2014effectively using smooth, curved surfaces to “join” the areas between grids of existing data. “You can take a spot where there is no data, look how close it is to the nearest data, and use various approaches of averaging and estimating to calculate your best guess,” he said. “If you pick a point, and all the nearby points are high altitude, you’d need a special reason for thinking that point would be lower. We’re mathematically papering over the gaps in our coverage.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Topo maps of parts<\/em> of Titan have been released before, but not for the entire moon. See previous posts on The Map Room: Titan in Stereo<\/a>; Topography of Titan<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cassini team has released a global topographic map of Saturn’s moon Titan. What makes this map interesting is the fact that, due to its thick atmosphere, Titan can only be mapped by radar during… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1623,118,383],"class_list":["post-5575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-astronomy","tag-cassini-probe","tag-moons","tag-titan","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5770,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2014\/02\/ganymede-and-mercury\/","url_meta":{"origin":5575,"position":0},"title":"Ganymede and Mercury","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 February 2014","format":"link","excerpt":"The USGS has published a geologic map of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon and the largest moon in the Solar System, based on imagery from the Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Galileo probes. Via Centauri Dreams, Sky and Telescope. Meanwhile, Sky and Telescope has produced a Mercury globe based on MESSENGER\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/astronomy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1363,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/03\/mapping-titan-with-vims\/","url_meta":{"origin":5575,"position":1},"title":"Mapping Titan with VIMS","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"29 March 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Because of its thick and opaque atmosphere, Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has to be mapped piece by piece during close fly-bys by the Cassini spacecraft, using radar, infrared and visual data. The above image is one of two montages that \"shows four synthetic views of Titan created using data acquired\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/astronomy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"titan-pia20022","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/titan-pia20022-1024x502.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/titan-pia20022-1024x502.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/titan-pia20022-1024x502.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/titan-pia20022-1024x502.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1788069,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/11\/first-geologic-map-of-titan\/","url_meta":{"origin":5575,"position":2},"title":"First Geologic Map of Titan","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"18 November 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"The first global geologic map of Titan, based on radar and infrared data from the Cassini probe, has been released. The map legend colors represent the broad types of geologic units found on Titan: plains (broad, relatively flat regions), labyrinth (tectonically disrupted regions often containing fluvial channels), hummocky (hilly, with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/astronomy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Geologic map of Titan","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/titan-geologic-1024x601.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/titan-geologic-1024x601.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/titan-geologic-1024x601.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/titan-geologic-1024x601.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1816382,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/06\/a-huge-super-expensive-edition-of-the-cassini-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":5575,"position":3},"title":"A Huge, Super-Expensive Edition of the Cassini Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"23 June 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"French publisher Conspiration \u00c9ditions has announced the forthcoming publication of a huge, luxury edition of the Cassini map. The 18th-century map is, famously, the first comprehensive map of France, and the first map to be based on triangulation. Their edition is enormous: at 56 \u00d7 65 cm (or 22 \u00d7\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Book cover of The Cassini Map","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/cassini-map-ltd-conspiration-267x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1919,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/05\/the-first-global-topographic-map-of-mercury\/","url_meta":{"origin":5575,"position":4},"title":"The First Global Topographic Map of Mercury","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"8 May 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"The first complete\u00a0topographic map of Mercury, based on data from the MESSENGER mission, was released last Friday: MESSENGER, USGS. The version above is a Robinson projection without labels (Robinson with labels, global DEM). \"Mercury\u2019s surface is colored according the topography of the surface, with regions with higher elevations colored brown,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/astronomy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"mercury-topo-robinson-nolabels","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/mercury-topo-robinson-nolabels-1024x519.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/mercury-topo-robinson-nolabels-1024x519.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/mercury-topo-robinson-nolabels-1024x519.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/mercury-topo-robinson-nolabels-1024x519.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5247,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2011\/11\/a-new-lunar-topo-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":5575,"position":5},"title":"A New Lunar Topo Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 November 2011","format":"link","excerpt":"A new topographic map of the Moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: \"Today the LROC team releases Version 1 of the Wide Angle Camera (WAC) topographic map of the Moon. This amazing map shows you the ups and downs over nearly the entire Moon, at a scale of 100 meters\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/astronomy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5612,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5575\/revisions\/5612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}