Dust storms on Titan

Imagery gathered by Cassini reveals mysterious bright spots on Titan, thought to be dust storms.

Imagery gathered by Cassini reveals mysterious bright spots on Titan, thought to be dust storms.

NASA/JPL

This animation, released by NASA, is based on images captured by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer on the Cassini mission during several flybys of Saturn’s moon Titan in 2009 and 2010.

The results show clear bright spots appearing close to the equator around the equinox that have been interpreted as evidence of dust storms. The brightenings were visible only for a short period of time – between 11 hours and five Earth weeks. They have not been seen in previous or subsequent images.

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