Sunday, January 3, 2016

W-40

-Cat #------Name----Certainty---Long---Lat-----Diameter---Radar Swath----------------------------------------------------------
 W-40...............................2         .47.6W 2.1N.....40 km-.....    ..T56--40
Radar T56 image.
  .....
Circular dark floor, surrounded by bright ejecta deposit with strong radial drainage. Small gap to west, perhaps due to adjacent smaller crater now gone, allows dark dunes onto crater floor. No sign of a central peak. 
Click image to enlarge it.

NL4 & 5

-Cat #------Name----Certainty---Long---Lat-----Diameter---Radar Swath----------------------------------------------------------
 NL5...............................2 ......140.6W 12.1N......30 km-.......T56--
 NL4........................ ......2 ......141.8W  11.0N.....22 km-.......T56--
Neish and Lorenz craters #5 (top) and #4. T56 Radar image.
Dark floors surrounded by narrow bright rims and one crater diameter ejecta deposit. Builds up high enough to stop dunes. Dunes penetrate missing rim segment and enter floor of #4. 

References:
2012: Neish, C. D., and Lorenz, R. D. Titan’s global crater population: A New assessment.  Planet. Space Sci., 60(Jan.), 26–33. doi: 10.1016/j.pss.2011.02.016.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Veles

Cat #------Name----Certainty---Long---  Lat-----Diameter---Radar Swath---------------------------------------------------------   
None     ..Veles         .. 2        137.3W 2N        45 km         T58

Rougly hexagonal shaped feature with slightly bright rim and dark floor. Hint of central structures in middle of crater floor. Also weaker hint of ejecta deposit about 1 to 1.5 crater diameter swide. Classed as a Large Ringed Feature in IAU nomenclature.

Selk

Cat #------Name----Certainty---Long---Lat-----Diameter---Radar Swath--------------------------------------------------------- 
NL1 .......... Selk ................198W   7N ..........80 km .......T36
VIMS colored image and geologic map from Soderblom et al (2010)
Radar T36 (left) and mosaic of unidentified images (right)
from USGS Titan map.

Broad, flat floor. Bright rim. VIMS shows 3 or 4 separate peak masses, only one near crater center. 
Rare case where VIMS image is sharper than radar.

This is NL1 of Neish and Lorenz (2012).





References:
2010: Soderblom, J. and others. Geology of the Selk impact crater region from Cassini VIMS observations. Icarus 208, 905-912. 

2010: Martin, E. Decoding a Titan CraterPlanetary Society post

2012: Neish, C. D., and Lorenz, R. D. Titan’s global crater population: A New assessment.  Planet. Space Sci., 60(Jan.), 26–33. doi: 10.1016/j.pss.2011.02.016.




Friday, January 1, 2016

Mystis

Cat #------Name----Certainty---Long---Lat-----Diameter---Radar Swath---------------------------------------------------------   
None       Mystis-----  1  --       193.4W 0.3N--20 km--    
A bright, but narrow rim encircles a dark floor. The crater appears on a bright blob that is about two times the crater diameter and thus gives the impression that it is ejecta. I don't know that it is. 

A smaller version of Mystis is below it, and with a little imagination another smaller bright ring is just above this one. A third possible crater is one Mystis diameter to its left, on dark terrain, rather than eject-like bright material. Are all of these impact craters? Any?

Nath

Cat #------Name----Certainty---Long---Lat-----Diameter---Radar Swath--------------------------------------------------------
None--      Nath- --        2         7.7  30.5S-- -95 km------T50 HiSAR
Poorly depicted feature, classed as a "Large ringed feature" rather than a crater in IAU nomenclature system. But bright rim and dark floor are very similar to accepted craters Soi and Forseti - I consider it an impact crater. At this resolution, no evidence for central peak, and as for many other dark-floored craters the rim is unbroken so the dark fill must have come from aeolian deposition.

Momoy

Cat #------Name----Certainty---Long---Lat-----Diameter---Radar Swath---------------------------------------------------------   
None      Momoy-----  2  --       44.6W 11.6N--478 & 28 km--     T77

Is this a two-ring crater? The outer circle could be the edge of an ejecta deposit, but the fact that it stops and diverts the dunes coming from the west documents that it is a raised relief structure - a crater rim. The smaller inner rim is rounded. This concentric ring structure is unique on Titan. 

Using radar foreshortening of opposing crater walls, Neish et al (2013) estimated the crater depth as 680 m +/-100 m. As I understand their paper, 680 m is the depth to the floor of the smaller crater; the rim height and crater depth of the outer ring are not known. 


References:
2013: C.D. Neish, R.L. Kirk, R.D. Lorenz, V.J. Bray, P. Schenk, B. Stiles, E. Turtle, K. Mitchell, A. Hayes, and the Cassini RADAR Team. Crater topography on Titan: Implications for landscape evolutionIcarus 223, 82-90.