Cassini/Huygens Mission Update Thread Pt. 2

telfrow · Oct 6, 2005

Brilliant F Ring Saturn's moon Pandora is almost overwhelmed by the brightness of the F ring in this view. The F ring's bright core displays kinks and is flanked by fainter ringlets. Imaging scientists recently determined these fainter ringlets to be a single spiral ring that winds around the planet. Pandora is 84 kilometers (52 miles) across. Pandora is faintly lit by "Saturnshine," or reflected light from the planet, and few features can be seen here. This image was acquired by Cassini exactly three hours after the spacecraft took the image seen in PIA07601, which showed Prometheus interior to the F ring. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 21, 2005, at a distance of approximately 583,000 kilometers (362,000 miles) from Saturn and at a high Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 136 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07602.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

telfrow · Oct 7, 2005

Cassini to Tour Moon with Streaks 10.07.05 -- The Cassini spacecraft will come face-to-face with the great, white streaks of Saturn's moon Dione on Oct. 11, 2005, when it flies to within 500 kilometers (310 miles) of the surface. During the close flyby Cassini will image the scarred terrain, which is a landscape of bright ice cliffs created by tectonic fractures. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

telfrow · Oct 10, 2005

Pandora Occults the F Ring Saturn's moon Pandora glides in front of the narrow F ring, making the moon's oblong outline visible. The image also shows the A ring, Cassini Division, B ring, and part of the C ring. This view is from beneath the ring plane. Pandora is 84 kilometers (52 miles) across. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 23, 2005, at a distance of approximately 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Pandora and at a Sun-Pandora-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 97 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07604.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

thechemist · Oct 12, 2005

Rhea eclipsed by Dione <img src="/images/icons/shocked.gif" /> link <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> I feel better than James Brown. </div>

thechemist · Oct 12, 2005

And here is a quick gif movie with some images missing. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> I feel better than James Brown. </div>

thechemist · Oct 13, 2005

That's Dione from 4,000 km away. Pretty amazing pictures ! link <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> I feel better than James Brown. </div>

telfrow · Oct 15, 2005

Rubbing-out the Rings Saturn's shadow spreads across the rings here, extending beyond the F ring and its tenuous, flanking ringlets. This view catches Saturn's moon Mimas on its day-long sojourn around the planet. Mimas is 397 kilometers (247 miles) across. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 24, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.1 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 84 degrees. The image scale is 13 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07608.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

yurkin · Oct 15, 2005

Happy 8th Birthday Cassini!! And many more to come.

telfrow · Oct 18, 2005

Ringside with Dione Speeding toward pale, icy Dione, Cassini's view is enriched by the tranquil gold and blue hues of Saturn in the distance. The horizontal stripes near the bottom of the image are Saturn’s rings. The spacecraft was nearly in the plane of the rings when the images were taken, thinning them by perspective and masking their awesome scale. The thin, curving shadows of the C ring and part of the B ring adorn the northern latitudes visible here, a reminder of the rings' grandeur. It is notable that Dione, like most of the other icy Saturnian satellites, looks no different in natural color than in monochrome images. Images taken on Oct. 11, 2005, with blue, green and infrared (centered at 752 nanometers) spectral filters were used to create this color view, which approximates the scene as it would appear to the human eye. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera at a distance of approximately 39,000 kilometers (24,200 miles) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 22 degrees. The image scale is about 2 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07744.html On a personal note: Wow <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

thinice · Oct 18, 2005

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07744.html Now this one is a beauty. Forget about manned spaceflights (at least for a moment <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />).

vogon13 · Oct 18, 2005

Ooooh! Aaaah! Fabulous images. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

telfrow · Oct 20, 2005

Stormy Weather: Titan's Enigmatic Cloud Band is Convective University of Arizona scientists say that the peculiar clouds at middle latitudes in Titan's southern hemisphere may form in the same way as distinct bands of clouds form at Earth's equator. "Titan's weather is very different from Earth's," said UA associate professor Caitlin Griffith. "If you walked past Titan's minus-40-degree-latitude line, you might be showered with liquid natural gas. If you decided to visit Titan's south pole, you might encounter a storm the size of a hurricane which also consists of methane, more commonly known as natural gas," Griffith said. "Otherwise, don't expect clouds on Titan." Titan's weather forecast has remained the same for years, and that baffles scientists. They don't understand why clouds a thousand miles long stretch over the temperate latitude. "Imagine how curious it would be if beyond Earth's poles, clouds existed only at the latitude that crosses New Zealand, Argentina and Chile," Griffith said. "Furthermore, Henry Roe (of the California Institute of Technology) and his colleagues find that most of these peculiar clouds bunch up at zero degrees and 90 degrees longitude, analogous to Earth longitudes southwest and southeast of the Cape of Good Hope," she added. The highly localized nature of the clouds suggests that they have something to do with Titan's surface, Griffith said. Scientists think ice volcanoes must be venting methane -- the gas that condenses as clouds -- into Titan's hazy, mostly nitrogen atmosphere. Otherwise, the moon's atmospheric methane would have vanished billions of years ago because methane is destroyed by ultraviolet sunlight. Griffith, Paulo Penteado and Robert Kursinski of UA's Lunar and Planetary Lab studied the origin of the clouds by analyzing cloud height and thickness using images from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS). This instrument is among a <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

telfrow · Oct 20, 2005

Racing Rocks Saturn's moon Prometheus chases Pandora in this Cassini view, but the outcome of their race has already been decided by gravity. Prometheus orbits closer to Saturn and thus moves faster than does Pandora. Prometheus is 102 kilometers (63 miles) across. Pandora is 84 kilometers (52 miles) across. This view is from a third of a degree beneath the ringplane. Familiar ring features that are visible from higher angles above the rings are foreshortened here. The planet's dark shadow stretches across the ringplane at center. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 8, 2005, at a distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Prometheus and Pandora. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07612.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

telfrow · Oct 22, 2005

Framing the C Ring The Cassini spacecraft looks close at Saturn to frame a view encompassing the entire C ring. In the dark region closer to the planet lies the much dimmer D ring. The bright B ring wraps around the left side of the scene, while Saturn's shadow darkens the rings at bottom. For reference, Saturn's sequence ring from its surface is D, C, B, A, F, G then E. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 4, 2005, at a distance of approximately 627,000 kilometers (390,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 34 kilometers (21 miles) per pixel. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07613.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

telfrow · Oct 24, 2005

Misleading Perspective The Saturn moon Mimas is much smaller than Rhea, but the geometry of this scene exaggerates the actual differences in size. Here, Mimas is on the opposite side of the rings from Rhea and Cassini. Mimas' diameter is 397 kilometers (247 miles), while Rhea's diameter is 1,528 kilometers (949 miles). Saturn's shadow slices across the ringplane here. The view looks toward the Saturn-facing hemisphere on Mimas, and the anti-Saturn hemisphere on Rhea. The image was taken in visible light with the narrow-angle camera on Sept. 9, 2005, from a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Rhea. Mimas was located on the far side of the rings, about 670,000 kilometers (420,000 miles) farther from Cassini. The image scale is 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Rhea and 13 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel on Mimas. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07614.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

chew_on_this · Oct 26, 2005

From CICLOPS: October 26, 2005 Dear Friends and Colleagues, The Cassini Imaging Team is delighted to announce that a paper describing the dynamics underlying the sculpting effects of the moon Prometheus on Saturn's narrow F ring will be published in the journal /Nature /tomorrow, October 27, 2005. A press release concerning these results, which went out a moment ago, is attached to this email. Also tomorrow, at 10:30 pm Pacific time, Cassini is returning to Titan for its 9th targetted flyby of the haze-enshrouded moon. In addition to images, Cassini is expected to return the first RADAR synthetic imagery from the Huygen's probe landing site. Images of the F ring to be published in Nature, and a preview map of the imaging sequences we can expect from Titan, can be found at... http://ciclops.org Enjoy, Carolyn Porco Cassini Imaging Team Leader Director/CICLOPS Space Science Institute Boulder, CO The paper: MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE CASSINI IMAGING CENTRAL LABORATORY FOR OPERATIONS (CICLOPS) SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE, BOULDER, COLORADO http://ciclops.org media@ciclops.org Preston Dyches (720) 974-5859 CICLOPS/Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For Immediate Release: October 26, 2005 CASSINI FINDS PROMETHEUS A SCULPTOR OF SATURN’S RINGS New findings from members of the Cassini imaging team show that certain prominent features in Saturn’s narrow and contorted F ring can be understood in terms of a simple gravitational interaction with the small moon Prometheus. The results are published in today’s issue of the journal “Nature.” The F ring is notorious for exhibiting unusu

telfrow · Oct 26, 2005

Titan Viewed by Cassini's Radar - Flat Map This map of Saturn's moon Titan shows the location of the upcoming Oct. 28, 2005, Titan flyby and the areas mapped so far by the Cassini Radar Mapper using its Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging mode. Longitudes are labeled at the bottom of the map. The radar swaths are superimposed on a false-color image made from observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The far left image shows the location of the radar swath for the upcoming Oct. 28 flyby. The location of the Huygens landing site is marked in red. The overlap between the Huygens data and the radar data will give new clues to the nature of the surface seen by the Huygens probe, which landed on Titan in January 2005. On the top right is the radar swath from the first Titan flyby, on Oct. 26, 2004. The middle swath is from the second radar pass of Titan, on Feb. 15, 2005 (near-equatorial). The Oct. 26 swath is about 4,500 kilometers long (2,800 miles), extending from 133 degrees west longitude and 32 degrees north latitude through 12 degrees west and 29 degrees north. The February swath is centered at approximately 30 degrees north and 70 degrees west. The spatial resolution of the radar images ranges from about 300 meters (980 feet) per pixel to about 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) per pixel. The bottom right swath shows the strip acquired during the third radar pass, on Sept. 7, 2005, close to Titan's south pole. The swath is centered at 12 degrees west and 51 degrees south, with similar spatial resolution to the previous two. These first three radar passes revealed a variety of geologic features, including impact craters, wind-blown deposits, channels, and cryovolcanic features. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia08111.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

telfrow · Oct 26, 2005

Titan Viewed by Cassini's Radar This set of images show the areas mapped so far on Saturn's moon Titan by the Cassini Radar Mapper using its Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging mode and the location of the upcoming Oct. 28, 2005, Titan flyby. Labels represent the approximate central longitude of each globe. The radar swaths are superimposed on a false-color image made from observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The top image shows radar swaths from the first Titan flyby, on Oct. 26, 2004, (northernmost) and the second radar pass of Titan, on Feb. 15, 2005 (near-equatorial). The Oct. 26 swath is about 4,500 kilometers long (2,800 miles), extending from 133 degrees west longitude and 32 degrees north latitude through 12 degrees west and 29 degrees north. The February swath is centered at approximately 30 degrees north and 70 degrees west. The spatial resolution of the radar images ranges from about 300 meters (980 feet) per pixel to about 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) per pixel. The middle globe shows the radar swath acquired during the third radar pass, on Sept. 7, 2005, close to Titan's south pole. The swath is centered at 12 degrees west and 51 degrees south, with similar spatial resolution to the previous two. These first three radar passes revealed a variety of geologic features, including impact craters, wind-blown deposits, channels, and cryovolcanic features. The third globe at the bottom shows the location of the radar swath for the upcoming Oct. 28 flyby. The location of the Huygens landing site is marked in red. The overlap between the Huygens data and the radar data will give new clues to the nature of the surface seen by the Huygens probe, which landed on Titan in January 2005. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia08110.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

telfrow · Oct 26, 2005

The Prometheus Effect This mosaic of 15 Cassini images of Saturn's F ring shows how the moon Prometheus creates a gore in the ring once every 14.7 hours, as it approaches and recedes from the F ring on its eccentric orbit. The individual images have been processed to make the ring appear as if it has been straightened, making it easier to see the ring's structure. The mosaic shows a region 147,000 kilometers (91,000 miles) along the ring (horizontal direction in the image); this represents about 60 degrees of longitude around the ring. The region seen here is about 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) across (vertical direction). The first and last images in the mosaic were taken approximately 2.5 hours apart. Each dark channel, or "gore," is clearly visible across more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) of the ring and is due to the gravitational effect of Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across), even though the moon does not enter the F ring. The channels have different tilts because the ring particles closer to Prometheus (overexposed, stretched, and just visible at the bottom right of the image) move slower with respect to the moon than those farther away. This causes the channels to shear with time, their slopes becoming greater, and gives the overall visual impression of drapes of ring material. The channels at the right are the youngest and have near-vertical slopes, while those at the left are the oldest and have near-horizontal slopes. This phenomenon has not previously been detected in any other planetary ring system, but computer simulations of the system prove that the disturbance is caused by a simple gravitational interaction. The eccentric orbit of Prometheus is gradually moving so that the moon will eventually come even closer in its closest approach to the eccentric F ring. Scientists calculate that its perturbations of the F ring will reach a maximum in December 2009. The images in this mosa <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

vogon13 · Oct 26, 2005

That is one freaky ring picture. And to think, we are most likely to get years more use from Cassini! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

chew_on_this · Oct 27, 2005

I see they call it a "gore". Looks like the infamous spokes to me.

telfrow · Oct 27, 2005

It looks like the "spokes" to me too. Mystery solved? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

chew_on_this · Oct 27, 2005

In my book.

telfrow · Oct 28, 2005

Hue and Contrast This color view shows two of the largest craters on Saturn’'s icy moon Tethys: Odysseus in the northern hemisphere and Melanthius in the south. The moon's surface grows notably darker northward of the equator. The horizontal stripes above the moon are the rings. The view shows the side of Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across), which always faces away from Saturn. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were composited to create this color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 11, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Tethys. The image scale is 12 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel on Tethys. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07617.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild. - Tennyson </div>

CalliArcale · Oct 30, 2005

Another Titan flyby has been completed; this one had heavy radar coverage. Should give us great new looks at the Huygens landing site! Unfortunately, it always takes a long time to get the radar pics assembled. I'm getting impatient already. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff." -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

Cassini/Huygens Mission Update Thread Pt. 2

telfrow

Guest

telfrow

Guest

telfrow

Guest

thechemist

Guest

thechemist

Guest

thechemist

Guest

telfrow

Guest

yurkin

Guest

telfrow

Guest

thinice

Guest

vogon13

Guest

telfrow

Guest

telfrow

Guest

telfrow

Guest

telfrow

Guest

chew_on_this

Guest

telfrow

Guest

telfrow

Guest

telfrow

Guest

vogon13

Guest

chew_on_this

Guest

telfrow

Guest

chew_on_this

Guest

telfrow

Guest

CalliArcale

Guest

Similar threads

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Share this page