I wiped my screen; waves on Titan sea? (APOD 30 May 2007)

[Axel]

When I looked at the picture of the hydrocarbon sea on Titan, I reached for a tissue and wiped my monitor because I thought there was a track of dust across the screen left over from a previous cleaning. But no: it's a very straight, though fuzzy, line crossing the sea at about 7 degrees (counterclockwise) from horizontal. What is it? An artifact? Surf?

[BMAONE23]

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070530.html
looking at the full size image there are also lines that run from NNE towars SSW. I would wager that ther are artifacts from image processing. The North-South lines tend to follow with the edgieness indicated at the top of the full size image.

[iamlucky13]

Axel, looking at the full size image, I'm pretty sure your line is where two seperate scans of the radar data were stitched together. It seems to be roughly parallel to the image edges.

I think BMAONE23's lines may be the same story, but someone on the Cassini team could probably confirm this. My guess is the radar scans up&down (relative to the picture orientation) rapidly as it slowly makes a long sideways sweep, then it moves back to its lateral starting position but lower.

[canoe2fish]

Is it me, or do I perceive what appears to be waves marching from left to right in the picture "Liquid Sea on Saturn's Titan"? Is this a trick of lighting, data transfer or display?

[DerekSmith]

It looks so regular it surely has to be imaging artefact except neither the near vertical, nor the near horizontal lines continue into the lighter areas??