The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Cassini spacecraft captured images of bright sunlight reflecting off of Titan's hydrocarbon seas.

Cassini captured separate views of the polar seas and star light glinting off them in the past. The recent photograph, however, marks the first time both of the seas are seen together in an image.

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The image also shows an arrow-shaped complex of bright methane clouds, which could be actively refilling lakes on the surface of Titan that hover near the moon's northern pole.

A bright margin, or a "bathtub ring," was seen around the sea that reflected the sunlight. The ring suggests the sea, dubbed Kraken Mare, was larger in the past but evaporation has made it smaller.

The seas on Titan consist mostly of liquid ethane and methane. Prior to the arrival of Cassini at Saturn, researchers anticipated Titan might have bodies of open liquid on its surface.

The spacecraft, however, only found expansive fields of sand dunes near the lower latitudes and equator with seas and lakes near the poles.

Meanwhile, another of NASA's spacecraft was able to record an impact on a celestial body closer to home.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft spotted a new crater on the surface of the Moon, which was made by the impact of the agency's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer mission.

"The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team recently developed a new computer tool to search Narrow Angle Camera  before and after image pairs for new craters, the LADEE impact event provided a fun test," said Mark Robinson, LROC principal investigator from Arizona State University in Tempe.

"As it turns there were several small surface changes found in the predicted area of the impact, the biggest and most distinctive was within 968 feet (295 meters) of the spot estimated by the LADEE operations team. What fun!"

Tagscassini, TItan, Saturn, Sea, Methane, Ethane, NASA, Kraken Mare