Titan Data Atlas

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Titan Equatorial SAR Mosaics

Four large radar mosaics that cover Titan from 60 degrees south to 60 degrees north, split by longitude.

In plain words

These mosaics stitch every Cassini radar swath into one picture of Titan's lower latitudes. The mosaic is split into four longitude quadrants only because the files are so large. Each quadrant is an ISIS3 cube of about 2.8 GB with its own DOI.

Good for: see what titan's surface looks like; make a map of a region for a class project.

Open it in your GIS

ArcGIS Pro

Opens directly Opens as it is downloaded.

  1. Open https://data.astro.cornell.edu/titan_equatorial_mosaics_birch/full_dataset/ to pick one quadrant.
  2. Download the quadrant cube you need (about 2.8 GB) instead of the 7.7 GB zip.
  3. Open ArcGIS Pro and create a new project with a map.
  4. On the Map tab, in the Layer group, click Add Data, then click Browse.
  5. Select the quadrant .cub file and click OK.
  6. Right-click the map in the Contents pane, click Properties, then click the Coordinate Systems tab.
  7. Confirm the map uses the Titan system from the layer.
  8. On the Project tab, click Save As and save the project.
  • Expert tip, paraphrased from a Cornell Spacecraft Planetary Image Facility talk: download one of the ArcGIS projects in the Titan Polar Mapping package, save it as your own and keep its basemap mosaics.
  • ArcGIS-ready single SAR swaths are also on NASA Solar System Treks (Titan Trek).
  • Titan is a sphere of radius 2,575 km. Do not let ArcGIS Pro treat the map as Earth (WGS 1984). Titan 2000 is Esri WKID 104943.
  • Esri lists ISIS cubes as read-only with 32-bit float support. These cubes are 32-bit float.
  • Quadrant names in the files: 1 is 180W to 85W, 2 is 95W to 5E, 3 is 5W to 95E, 4 is 85E to 180E.

QGIS

Opens directly Opens as it is downloaded.

  1. Download the quadrant cube you need from the full_dataset folder.
  2. Select Layer > Add Layer > Add Raster Layer.
  3. Select the quadrant .cub file and click Add.
  4. Open Layer Properties, click the Source tab and check the CRS is Equirectangular Titan.
  5. Right-click the layer and select Layer CRS > Set Project CRS from Layer.
  6. Add more quadrants the same way to cover more longitudes.
  • Titan is a sphere of radius 2,575 km. Do not assign EPSG:4326 (WGS 84); use the CRS embedded in the cube.
  • Each cube is about 2.8 GB. Build pyramids from Layer Properties if drawing is slow.
  • If you need a Titan CRS by hand, select Settings > Custom CRS (Custom Projections in older versions).

JMARS

Not confirmed Nobody has confirmed this tool opens it yet.

  1. Select Titan in the JMARS body list, if your version offers it.
  2. Clip a region under 512 MB from a quadrant in QGIS (Raster > Extraction > Clip Raster by Extent).
  3. Save the clipped region as an ISIS cube or TIFF without an alpha band.
  4. Click Add New Layer, then click Advanced Map.
  5. Click Upload Map in the Available Maps section.
  6. Enter the file path, then type a name for the map.
  7. Select regional, and type the bounding box if the file is not an ISIS cube.
  • JMARS support for Titan is not confirmed. The JMARS FAQ lists a Titan radius of 2,576 km, but no JMARS page we found confirms Titan as a selectable body.
  • Each quadrant is about 2.8 GB, above the 512 MB custom-map limit, so you must clip it first.

Titan products here are referenced to a sphere of radius 2,575 km. If your GIS asks for a coordinate system, pick a Titan sphere, never an Earth one, and check the product's own label or .prj file first.

Converted sample

No converted sample for this product yet. Use the download or the full dataset links instead.