Scientists have released the first topo map of Titan.

Scientists have released the first topo map of Titan.

Whereas Earth’s tallest mountain towers nearly 9 kilometers above sea level, Titan’s topographic variations are mild: Its highest point is just half a kilometer above the mean and its lowest just 1.7 kilometers below.

Overall the detail here is not very great. None of the instruments on Cassini can see anything smaller than a half kilometer, about 1,500 feet, so the data doesn’t really show us the rough details. Moreover, the best data is spotty, as it has been accumulated by about a hundred Cassini fly-bys, rather than systematically by an orbiting spacecraft.