Purple haze around Titan

This NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens image of Titan was taken with the narrow-angle camera on 3 July 2004, from a distance of about 789 000 kilometres from Titan. The image scale is 4.7 kilometres per pixel.

This image shows two thin haze layers. The outer haze layer is detached and appears to float high in the atmosphere. Because of its thinness, the high haze layer is best seen at the moon's limb.

The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of ultraviolet light centred at 338 nanometres.

The image has been falsely coloured, the globe of Titan retains the pale orange hue our eyes would usually see, but both the main atmospheric haze and the thin detached layer have been brightened and given a purple colour to enhance their visibility.