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Authors: Zebker Howard A., Stiles Bryan, Hensley Scott, Lorenz Ralph, Kirk Randolph L., and Lunine Jonathan
Year: 2009
Title: Size and Shape of Saturn's Moon Titan
Journal: Science
Volume: 324
Number: 5929
Pages: 921
Keywords: Saturn, major, planetology, observation, parameter, image
Abstract: Cassini observations show that Saturn's moon Titan is slightly oblate. A fourth-order spherical harmonic expansion yields north polar, south polar, and mean equatorial radii of 2574.32 +/- 0.05 kilometers (km), 2574.36 +/- 0.03 km, and 2574.91 +/- 0.11 km, respectively; its mean radius is 2574.73 +/- 0.09 km. Titan's shape approximates a hydrostatic, synchronously rotating triaxial ellipsoid but is best fit by such a body orbiting closer to Saturn than Titan presently does. Titan's lack of high relief implies that mostbut not allof the surface features observed with the Cassini imaging subsystem and synthetic aperture radar are uncorrelated with topography and elevation. Titan's depressed polar radii suggest that a constant geopotential hydrocarbon table could explain the confinement of the hydrocarbon lakes to high latitudes.
%F: AA(Departments of Geophysics and Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.), AB(Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.), AC(Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.), AD(Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723, USA.), AE(U.S. Geological Survey, 2255 North Gemini Drive, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA.), AF(Departments of Planetary Science and Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.)
Bibliogaphic Code: 2009Sci...324..921Z

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