Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: Shrouded in a thick atmosphere, Saturn's largest moon Titan really is hard to see. Small particles in the upper atmosphere cause an almost impenetrable haze, strongly scattering light at visible wavelengths and hiding Titan's surface features from prying eyes. But Titan's surface is better imaged at infrared wavelengths where scattering is weaker and atmospheric absorption is reduced. Arrayed around the center visible light image of Titan are some of the clearest infrared views of the tantalizing moon so far. In false color, the six panels present a processing of 13 years of image data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the Cassini spacecraft and offer a stunning comparison with Cassini's visible light view.