Jingpo Lacus

Jingpo Lacus is a lake in the north polar region of Titan,^[1] the planet Saturn's largest moon. It and similarly sized Ontario Lacus^[2] are the largest known bodies of liquid on Titan after the three maria (Kraken Mare, Ligeia Mare, and Punga Mare).^[3] It is composed of liquid hydrocarbons (mainly methane and ethane). It is west of Kraken Mare at 73° N, 336° W, roughly 240 km (150 mi) long,^{[1][note 1]} similar to the length of Lake Onega on Earth. Its namesake is Jingpo Lake,^[1] a lake in China.

Jingpo Lacus

Jingpo Lacus in a false-color synthetic aperture radar image of Titan's north polar region. An extension of Kraken Mare enters the view at upper left.
Feature type	Lacus
Coordinates	73°N 336°W
Diameter	240 km[note 1]
Eponym	Jingpo Lake

Specular reflection

On 8 July 2009, Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) observed a specular reflection in 5 μm infrared light off Jingpo Lacus at 71° N, 337° W. (This has sometimes been described less accurately as at the southern shoreline of Kraken Mare.^[4]) Specular reflections indicate a smooth, mirror-like surface, so the observation corroborated the inference of the presence of a large liquid body drawn from radar imaging. The observation was made soon after the north polar region emerged from 15 years of winter darkness.^[5]

Gallery

• 
  Synthetic aperture radar image (top) overlaid onto a visible light/infrared image of Titan's north polar region, showing Jingpo Lacus (at center) and other liquid bodies (Kraken Mare at bottom, Ligeia Mare at right, and Punga Mare) outlined in blue.
• 
  Specular reflection off Jingpo Lacus, observed by the Cassini probe on July 8, 2009

See also

• Solar System portal

• Lakes of Titan

Notes

1. The USGS web site gives the size as a "diameter", but it is actually the length in the longest dimension.