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03-005 "Titan Cloudscape"
2003, digital

Hovering high in the clouds of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, we can see the magnificent ringed planet through the clear upper fringes of atmosphere. In crescent phase here, Saturn will slowly work its way through all illumination angles over the course of Titan's 8-day circuit around the planet. Other moons which circle closer to Saturn appear as bright stars that slowly dance around their mother planet like glowing bees. Below, the dense gases hide any trace of Titan's mysterious landscape. Until the 2004 arrival of the Cassini space probe and its Titan landing sub-probe Huygens, we will not know whether ice, rock, or even an exotic ocean of ethane awaits us below.

Chris Butler