Polar Projection of Titan

NASA released a beautiful polar projection map of Saturn’s moon Titan based on a composite image created from several radar sweeps of its northern regions.

Titan’s North Pole

Like many striking astronomical images, this one is false-color; radar reflectivity is mapped to a particular color in order to produce a more accessible (and appealing) image. Here NASA scientists have taken the liberty of making the particularly smooth regions—areas that they suspect are actually liquid hydrocarbon lakes—a deep sea-like blue. So while the map is nice, if you ever found yourself orbiting Titan at some point in the future, you’re not going to see anything like this as you gaze out the window.