Cassini orbiter ISS (Imaging Science Subsystem), RADAR & VIMS (Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer) images are displayed in quick succession followed by DISR (Huygens Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer) mosaics from increasingly lower altitudes. The longitude/latitude grid lines are separated by 2 degrees.
The surface colour is approximately what a human observer riding along with the probe would see if she or he could see through Titan's atmospheric haze. In the last few kilometres the point-of-view turns south, the direction the Huygens Probe is believed to be facing as it sits on the surface today, and the approximate landing site is marked with a dotted-circle.
The DISR images are relatively unique in the change of scale they display as Titan transforms from a planetary mass to an alien landscape. Three cameras, whose combined field of view was a narrow vertical slice stretching from nadir to horizon, recorded images as fast as they could be transmitted to the Cassini Orbiter. They were projected from above to preserve scale and then projected with a perspective that mimicked what an observer riding the probe would see. Each second of the animation encompasses 30 frames. Credit: ESA/NASA/ASI. Animated by Bashar Rizk, Lunar & Planetary laboratory, University of Arizona.
