Before the probe landed there have been numerous artist’s renderings of the probe drifting down through Titan’s atmosphere with a partial Saturn in the distance.
Is there any chance that the probe caught any real pictures like that? Seeing
Saturn hanging in the clouds would be the coolest thing.
Thanks.
There would have been very limited opportunity. I expect such a photo would have to have been taken before the probe fully descended into the thick, permament cloud layer that has kept us from having any direct knowledge of Titan’s surface (until now).
If there were intelligent aliens living on Titan, they would have no knowledge of astronomy. They’d never have seen outside their atmosphere.
Or perhaps conditions are just perfect once in a while to show Saturn? That’d make an interesting science fiction story. What kind of religion would a culture have if once every few years for a few minutes a huge ringed ball appeared in the sky?
Even if the clouds did lift, Saturn wouldn’t be the monstrous ball depicted in some of those illustrations. According to NASA’s Solar System Simulator, when viewed from Titan, Saturn would take up 5.79° of sky. That’s only about 11 times larger than the moon, viewed from earth.
The hydrocarbon smog of Titan’s upper atomosphere appears to completely obscure its surface in the visble band. I can only imagine that, from the surface, space is completely obscurred as well, though perhaps there are a few scattered breaks in the haze due to weather. As said above, glimpses of Saturn from the surface would probably be fortuitous at best.
5.79 degrees is a pretty good swath of sky. 11 times the width of the moon is pretty darned big - about the size of a baseball held at arm’s length, if my estimation is close. Seeing that in the sky would be a spectacular sight. But I agree that it’s not exactly the horizon-spanning orb you see in some paintings, but maybe close to this one.
Oh, does the 5.79 degrees include the rings? Because this PDF from NASA has a picture in it of a poster called “Amazing Saturn”, and it depicts Saturn as seen from Titan. The caption says the angular size is accurately portrayed, and it looks HUGE.
Dunno, let’s see:
Titan is about 1,220,000km from Saturn.
Saturns equatorial diameter is about 120,500km
The rings are about 250,000 km in diameter.
Triangles and sin[sup]-1[/sup]'s ensue.
Saturn alone should take up 5.6 degrees. With the rings, that’ll be 11.8 degrees.
Pretty sizey, but not a third of the sky.
Cool site. I love stuff like this. Thanks.