Size and shape of Saturn's moon Titan.
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 19342551.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.1168905.
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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 most--but not all--of 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.
Medical subject headings
- Saturn