APOD: Mystery Feature Now Disappears in... (2016 Mar 07)

[just-a-16yrold]

What if it is just a land form under the lake and the lake is just rising or falling in its level?

[just-a-16yrold]

What if it is just a landform under the lake and the lake is simply rising or falling in its level?

[Chris Peterson]

What if it is just a land form under the lake and the lake is just rising or falling in its level?

Since this is a radar image, based on ranging data, I presume that any change in the surface level would be detectable.

[Fred the Cat]

Are they sure those are land masses? If they were a less dense floating solid on a liquid hydrocarbon lake and the density of the liquid was fluctuating per season wouldn't they change buoyancy? Of course then the liquid hydrocarbon might expand also and rise its surface level which wasn't detected.

Still a mystery...

[TLGr]

The missing link in Titan's lake? Actually nothing is missing, it is disappearing from sight because of rotation of the Plaint casting light on the visible Hydrocarbon above the lake's level, in the top inset, point in question, is not visible because of the isthmus low profile in the umbra light of the planet.
Notice the brightness of the second inset down it is brightest in light of the four insets, the "Mysterious Missing" is very visible in this inset. The third inset has a little less light and the "Mysterious Missing" is fading out, The lowest inset has even less light and the "Mysterious Missing" has disappeared from sight or it is not showing on the surface.
Shadows of light on the Carbon 'land-scape' surface indicate the rotation of the Planet, the top inset is very little exposed with light consequently not seen by the camera , the next down shows light coming from near the Zenith, the brightest, that is why the 'Mystery' is showing, the third Inset down indicates the light coming form low in the south barley showing the Mistry island, the fourth inset the light is coming from the low north with low lighting and no exposure to our "Mysterious Missing" it's evident the photos were not taken in a direct sequence.
The april 26, 2007 Image is it not shown? that is some confusion to the dates of the other insets. I'm curious as to how this little speck of the surface was noticed missing, in the lower inset there is a large portion of the land scape missing on it's west or left side of the picture.

Thomas L Groot
TLG5719@centurylink.net

[geckzilla]

Thomas, the imagery was made using radar. Hence, the spacecraft itself provided the light (in the form of microwaves) in order to create the image.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/c ... siniradar/

edit: someone please do correct me if I am wrong here. I wrote it the best I knew how.

[BMAONE23]

You are correct, these are Radar Images and not dependent on visible light so no visible light shadowing effect would be possible.
Although radar shadowing can occur, this is usually manifested as missing data rather than Flat data

[Fred the Cat]

This was fun to watch