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Titan’s Halo

Titan's Halo
With its thick, distended atmosphere, Titan's orange globe shines softly, encircled by a thin halo of purple light-scattering haze. This composite image was created using taken using blue, green and red spectral filters to create this enhanced-color view; the color images were combined with an ultraviolet view that makes the haze visible.

With its thick, distended atmosphere, Titan’s orange globe shines softly, encircled by a thin halo of purple light-scattering haze.
This composite image was created using taken using blue, green and red spectral filters to create this enhanced-color view; the color images were combined with an ultraviolet view that makes the high-altitude, detached layer of haze visible. The ultraviolet part of the composite image was given a purplish hue to match the bluish-purple color of the upper atmospheric haze seen in visible light.
Small particles that populate high hazes in Titan’s atmosphere scatter short wavelengths more efficiently than longer visible or infrared wavelengths, so the best possible observations of the detached layer are made in ultraviolet light.Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute