Jingpo Lacus Glints During Cassini Orbiter’s Titan Flyby July 8, 2009

Summary: Jingpo Lacus glints during Cassini Orbiter’s Titan flyby July 8, 2009, according to Cassini’s Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS).

Cassini Orbiter’s Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer’s (VIMS) July 8, 2009, image capture of sunlight reflected from the north polar region’s Jingpo Lacus confirms liquid presence in Titan’s northern hemisphere; NASA ID PIA12481; image added Dec. 17, 2009; image credit NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/DLR: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA JPL Photojournal

Jingpo Lacus glints during Cassini Orbiter’s Titan flyby July 8, 2009, according to an image obtained by the spacecraft’s Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS).

The glint typifies a specular reflection, which is a reflection that has the properties of a mirror. A specular reflection occurs as a mirror-like reflection of waves, all at the same angle, from a smooth surface.

Cassini scientists identified the glinting location on Titan by examining radar and near-infrared light images obtained from 2006 to 2008. The glint seemed to originate near the western shores of Kraken Mare, the largest know liquid body on Titan. The scientists tracked the glint’s location to a part of Jingpo Lacus near 71 degrees north latitude, 337 degrees west longitude.

Jingpo Lacus is a north polar region lake on Titan, the largest Saturnian moon. The Titanean lake encompasses an area of 20,800 square kilometers (8,000 square miles), according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) Photojournal website.

The image of glinting Jingpo Lacus was obtained approximately 33 days before Saturn’s spring equinox. The CICLOPS (Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations) website, which officially sources Cassini images of the Saturnian system, details the Saturnian vernal (Latin: vernalis, “of or pertaining to spring”) equinox as taking place Tuesday, Aug. 11, at 00:15 Coordinated Universal Time (Monday, Aug. 10, at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time). Saturn’s orbital period of approximately 29 Earth years explains the occurrence of its spring equinox approximately every 15 Earth years.

NASA’s Cassini Orbiter detected the sunlight reflected off Jingpo Lacus during the spacecraft’s 59th flyby of Titan. The image was obtained at an approximate distance of 200,000 kilometers (120,000 miles). Cassini’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer created the image via light wavelengths in the 5 micron range.

The image resolution detailed approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) per pixel. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) in Berlin, Germany, and the University of Arizona in Tucson collaborated in the image’s processing.

Dr. Katrin Stephan was “. . . the first to see the glint on July 10th,” according to JPL media relations specialist and science writer Jia-Rui Cook’s Dec. 17, 2009, post on NASA’s Cassini Mission News webpages. Dr. Stephan, who is an associate member of the VIMS team, processed the initial image.

“I was instantly excited because the glint reminded me of an image of our own planet taken from orbit around Earth, showing a reflection of sunlight on an ocean,” Stephan recalled. “But we also had to do more work to make sure the glint we were seeing wasn’t lightning or an erupting volcano.”

The NASA JPL Photojournal website’s Dec. 17, 2009, posting announced that the glint “. . . confirmed the presence of liquid in the moon’s northern hemisphere, where lakes are more numerous and larger than those in the southern hemisphere.”

Cassini co-investigator Ralf Jaumann noted the glint finding as revelatory of the stability of Kraken Mare’s shoreline over the past three years and of an ongoing Titanean cycle of surfacing liquids.

“These results remind us how unique Titan is in the solar system,” Jaumann observed for Jia-Rui Cook’s Dec. 17, 2009, post. “But they also show us that liquid has a universal power to shape geological surfaces in the same way, no matter what the liquid is.”

Cassini project scientist Robert (Bob) Pappalardo considered: “This one image communicates so much about Titan -- thick atmosphere, surface lakes and an otherworldliness.” He described the image as “. . . an unsettling combination of strangeness yet similarity to Earth. This picture is one of Cassini’s iconic images.”

The takeaways for glinting Jingpo Lacus during Cassini Orbiter’s Titan flyby July 8, 2009, are that the spacecraft’s Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) obtained the image approximately 33 days before Saturn’s spring equinox; that the image captured a specular reflection, in which light waves reflected, mirror-like, from the smooth, mirror-like surface of Jingpo Lacus; and that the image confirmed a liquid presence in Titan’s northern hemisphere.

Cassini false-color mosaic shows Jingpo Lacus (blue; lower center left) in Saturnian moon Titan’s north polar region; NASA ID PIA10008; image addition date Oct. 11, 2007; image credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA JPL Photojournal @ https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/?IDNumber=PIA10008

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Cassini Orbiter’s Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer’s (VIMS) July 8, 2009, image capture of sunlight reflected from the north polar region’s Jingpo Lacus confirms liquid presence in Titan’s northern hemisphere; NASA ID PIA12481; image added Dec. 17, 2009; image credit NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/DLR: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA JPL Photojournal @ https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12481;
Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Video Library @ https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA12481

Cassini false-color mosaic shows Jingpo Lacus (blue; lower center left) in Saturnian moon Titan’s north polar region; NASA ID PIA10008; image addition date Oct. 11, 2007; image credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS: May be used for any purpose without prior permission, via NASA JPL Photojournal @ https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/?IDNumber=PIA10008;
Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PIA10008_Seas_and_Lakes_on_Titan_full_size.jpg

For further information:

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Available @ http://ciclops.org/view/5751/Rev116

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Available @ https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20091217.html

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Available @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/14655

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Available @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/TITAN/target

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Available @ https://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2009/2267.html

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Available @ https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12481

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