Outer Solar System

The Cassini RADAR team led by USGS scientist, Randolph Kirk , has discovered the "best candidate yet" for an ice volcano on Saturn's moon Titan. The 3D view reveals multiple mountain peaks, deep pits and finger-like flows at Sotra Facula. Some of the terrain resembles volcanic cones, craters and flows on Earth but made of Titan materials (ice and/or carbon compounds) not molten rock. Existence of...

As the Cassini spacecraft passed through the Jovian system on its way to Saturn, it captured more than 500 images of Jupiter's moon Io in eclipse. Cassini's near-ultraviolet filters detected the moon's bright equatorial glows, supporting the interpretation that the visible emissions are predominantly due to molecular sulfer dioxide (SO2).

The Astrogeology Team at USGS provides coordination of NASA's planetary geologic mapping program. Geologic mapping investigations of any imaged planetary body (except Earth) are proposed to NASA's Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program on an annual basis (generally due sometime between late April and early June) and then reviewed by the Lunar and Planetary Geoscience Review Panel. USGS map...

The USGS Astrogeology Science Center is host to the lead science component  of the Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node (IMG) of the NASA Planetary Data System (PDS). A partner facility at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) provides engineering support and technical management for the IMG. The IMG is a PDS science discipline node that manages an archive of more than 1500 TB in a growing...