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During Cassini's "T16" 16th flyby of Titan on 2006 July 22, its mapping spectrometer for the first time

utilized the 'noodle' technique of taking long, zigzagging spectra instead of single multispectral snapshot 'cubes.'

The quotation is from Ulivi, "Robotic Exploration of the Solar System, Part 3," bottom of page 120.

What is the noodle technique? What is a long zigzagging spectrum? Why would this be preferred to conventional hyperspectral imaging?

For once the author fails to cite his sources. Google results are awash in red herrings.

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Pages 147-148 of The Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) investigation (original), combined with this image being called a noodle, suggests what zigzag might mean:

Instead of the usual procedure of aiming the instrument at one spot to accumulate a 64 pixel by 64 pixel by 352 spectel "data cube," its "along track spatial dimension" is panned across the moon's surface, for faster and broader albeit messier data collection, presumably when a flyby doesn't have enough time allocated to the instrument for it to run in the usual way.

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ Congratulations for tracking this down! I thought people would enjoy seeing the noodle itself, feel free to roll back. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Oct 8, 2019 at 5:37
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    $\begingroup$ Yeah, hunting took a while. The cutesier the name, the harder the googling. $\endgroup$
    – Camille Goudeseune
    Oct 8, 2019 at 15:10

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