Because of its thick and opaque atmosphere, Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has to be mapped piece by piece during close fly-bys by the Cassini spacecraft, using radar, infrared and visual data. The above image is one of two montages that “shows four synthetic views of Titan created using data acquired by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) on board NASA’s Cassini spacecraft between 2004 and 2015. These views demonstrate some of the progress researchers have made in creating smooth-looking maps of Titan from the multitude of different VIMS observations made under a wide variety of lighting and viewing conditions.” More on VIMS here.

Previously: Titan in Stereo; Topography of Titan; “Extraterrestrial Islands in a Methane Sea”; Mapping the Solar System: Mercury and Titan; Huygens Probe Images of Titan.