New Crater Discovered on Titan

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this image of a semi-circular feature on Saturn’s moon Titan. Planetary geologists think that it might be a relatively recent impact crater on Titan. This would be surprising, since all the data gathered on Titan shows that its surface is relatively young, constantly weathered and resurfaced by weather conditions – only three impact craters have been found on Titan so far.

The image was captured with Cassini’s radar mapper during its January 13, 2007 flyby of Titan. The crater is about 180 km (110 miles) wide, and the bright material around the dark centre is the ejecta blanket hurled out during the impact. The inner crater is dark; for radar images, that means it’s a smooth surface, possibly from deposits covering the inside of the crater.

Original Source: NASA/JPL/SSI News Release