In colors strongly reminiscent of a renaissance painting rendered in egg tempera and gold leaf, Titan's north polar region appears here. Cassini spacecraft obtained the data from which this false-colour mosaic was made, showing all synthetic-aperture radar images to date of Titan's north polar region. Roughly 60% of Titan's north polar region, above 60° north, has been mapped with radar in seven fly-bys of this moon of Saturn.

Researchers believe blue and black areas represent liquid, while the "radar-bright" areas tinted brown likely indicate a solid surface. (Terrain at the top center has a lower resolution than the remainder of the image.)

The seas of Titan are probably filled with liquid ethane, methane and dissolved nitrogen. The large feature in the upper right center of this image measures at least 38610 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) in area, greater in extent than Lake Superior (31660 square miles, 82 000 square kilometers), one of Earth's largest lakes.

--NASA/JPL/USGS and SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS