NASA鈥檚 Cassini spacecraft spotted a titanic depression on Titan during a close pass of the moon on 15 February. The crater, or basin, is big enough to fit a country the size of Greece inside with room to spare.
The feature was probably created after an asteroid or comet struck the surface of Saturn鈥檚 giant moon. The depression is the first impact feature on Titan found by Cassini. The spacecraft鈥檚 imaging cameras had seen the bowl before, but not in such fine detail.
This is Cassini鈥檚 third pass of Titan and the second time the spacecraft has mapped it with its radar instrument. This time, Cassini flew within 1577 kilometres (980 miles) of the surface. Cassini鈥檚 probe, Huygens, got an even closer view of the moon after it parachuted down to the surface on 14 January 2005.
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鈥淚t鈥檚 reassuring to look at two parts of Titan and see similar things,鈥� says Jonathan Lunine at the University of Arizona, Tucson, US, and one of the Cassini scientists. 鈥淎t the same time, there are some new and strange things.鈥�
This encounter with Titan marks the first time that Cassini鈥檚 radar and imaging camera have focused on the same object, significantly increasing the level of detail discovered.
Cassini鈥檚 next flyby will see it zoom past another of Saturn鈥檚 moons 鈥� Enceladus 鈥� on Thursday.
