Cassini/Huygens Mission Update Thread Pt. 2

[bobvanx]

Wow, I just saw the DISR team's movie of the Huygens descent "Bells and Whistles" and I am BLOWN AWAY!<br /><br />Very good job, DISR team, it's amazing how you spliced all those cruddy little pics into such an amazing video!

 

[gbruno]

Nasa releases a cute Huygens Descent Movie 5/05/2006 1:20PM<br />http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia08117.html<br /><br />But, its not the movie I want to see (again)<br />Just after the descent, broadcast TV in Aus showed a brief movie which revealed a stunning shoreline.<br />The 5May06 movie passes the final descent in a blink.<br /><br />See these 2 images:<br />http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v98/gbruno/1c9d63b0.jpg<br />http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v98/gbruno/huygens02.jpg<br /><br />These images do not appear in the May06 movie, but Something very like them was in the TV clip,<br />and being animated, they conveyed a startling sense of shore& ocean.<br /><br /><br />So where is the <b />Real</b> Huygens movie?<br /><br />ps: what do the rings of Saturn look like from inside?<br />ie what is a typical ringparticle size?<br />what distance between typical particles?<br /><br />

 

[Leovinus]

I watched that movie. At the end when you're on the surface, they show three strips of surface: On the right is a color shot. In the middle is a black and white shot, and on the left is a boot print from our Moon. Go figure. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[chew_on_this]

I assume that is to provide scale to the other pics.

 

[Leovinus]

I hadn't thought of that. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[chew_on_this]

I have my moments once in a while...

 

[telfrow]

<font color="yellow">More Enceladus geyser photos...</font><br /><br /><i>N00060473.jpg was taken on May 03, 2006 and received on Earth May 04, 2006. The camera was pointing toward ENCELADUS at approximately 1,950,097 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and IR1 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated.</i><br /><br />Link <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

Scale it is. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[brandbll]

Now how about some bigger rocks so we can actually see how big those footprints are? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="3">You wanna talk some jive? I'll talk some jive. I'll talk some jive like you've never heard!</font></p> </div>

 

[telfrow]

Mercator projection of Huygens's view at different altitudes<br /><br />Views of Titan from Different Altitudes<br /><br />Titan's Pebbles<br /><br />Mercator Projection of Huygens's View <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

Radar Images Shikoku -- "Great Britain"<br /><br />Radar Images the Margin of Xanadu<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Raw Image</b><br /><br /><i>N00060594.jpg was taken on May 05, 2006 and received on Earth May 05, 2006. The camera was pointing toward DIONE at approximately 2,833,549 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the RED and CL2 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated.</i><br /><br />Link <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[abq_farside]

Great shot - tennis anyone? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em><font size="1" color="#000080">Don't let who you are keep you from becoming who you want to be!</font></em></p> </div>

 

[thinice]

I wonder what is this diffused light stretching far from the both sides of the ring plane?

 

[majornature]

Did they find any evidence of water or materials that resembles that of Planet Earth? What taking so long? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#14ea50"><strong><font size="1">We are born.  We live.  We experiment.  We rot.  We die.  and the whole process starts all over again!  Imagine That!</font><br /><br /><br /><img id="6e5c6b4c-0657-47dd-9476-1fbb47938264" style="width:176px;height:247px" src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/Content/images/store/14/4/6e5c6b4c-0657-47dd-9476-1fbb47938264.Large.jpg" alt="blog post photo" width="276" height="440" /><br /></strong></font> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Titan's Land-o-Lakes</b><br /><br /><i>The Cassini spacecraft's Titan Radar Mapper instrument imaged this area atop Xanadu, the bright area of Titan, on April 30, 2006. The picture is roughly 150 kilometers (93 miles) wide by 400 kilometers (249 miles) long, and shows features as small as 350 meters (1148 feet). Chains of hills or mountains are revealed by the radar beam, which is illuminating their northern sides (in this image, north is up). Interspersed between the chains of hills are darker areas where topographic features are absent or partly buried. The darkest areas could contain liquids, which tend to reflect the radar beam away from Cassini in the absence of winds, making the area appear quite dark. At Titan's icy conditions, these liquids would be methane and/or ethane. Stubby drainage features can be see faintly between the chains of hills, suggesting flow of the liquid across parts of the region. </i><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Complex Terrain</b><br /><br /><i>This complex area of hilly terrain and erosional channels is located atop Xanadu, the continent-sized region on Saturn's moon Titan. The image was captured by the Cassini Titan Radar Mapper on April 30, 2006. It shows details as small as 350 meters (1148 feet). Each side of the picture covers 200 kilometers (124 miles). <br /><br />Chains of hills or mountains are located near the bottom of the image, appearing bright on their north side (toward the top in this image). Extending further north is a drainage region where liquids flowed, eroding the presumably water-ice bedrock of Xanadu. Careful inspection reveals a series of faint drainage channels, some of which appear to empty into the dark region near the top of the image. Liquid methane might be fed from springs within Xanadu or by occasional rainfall suspected to occur on Titan. There is evidence for this rainfall in images taken by the Descent Imager/ Spectral Radiometer camera on the Huygens probe as it landed, well to the west of this area, on January 14, 2005 (see PIA07238). </i> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Saturn's Night Colors</b><br />May 11, 2006 Full-Res: PIA08176<br /><br /><i>This rare color view of Saturn's night side shows how the rings dimly illuminate the southern hemisphere, giving it a dull golden glow. Part of the northern dark side is just visible at top -- the illumination it receives being far less than the south.<br /><br />The unlit side of the rings is shown here. The portion of the rings closest to Cassini is within the dark shadow of Saturn; the bright distant portion is outside the planet's shadow.<br /><br />A crescent Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) appears below the rings at left.<br /><br />Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 2, 2006, at a distance of approximately 3.8 million kilometers (2.4 million miles) from Saturn and 3.5 kilometers (2.2 million miles) from Tethys. The image scale is about 23 kilometers (14 miles) per pixel on Saturn. </i><br /><br />Link <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Dunes and more dunes</b><br />May 12, 2006<br /><br /><i>This image was taken with the Cassini Synthetic Aperture Radar instrument on Oct. 28, 2005.<br /><br />This was the fourth flyby of Titan during which radar images were obtained, and this pass considerably expanded the coverage of Titan's surface.<br /><br />The swath is about 6,150 kilometers kilometers (3,821 miles) long, extending from 7 degrees north to 18 degrees south latitude and 179 west to 320 west longitude.<br /><br />The spatial resolution of the radar images ranges from about 300 meters (984 feet) per pixel to about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) per pixel. It covers the area where the Huygens probe landed (eastern end of the swath), giving geologic context for the landing site.<br /><br />The most ubiquitous features in this swath are "cat scratches," which are interpreted as longitudinal dunes and were first seen in the February 2005 flyby, see Titan, a Geologically Dynamic World.<br /><br />Also prominent are long, bright ridges, concentrated near the eastern end of the swath. These may be tectonic in origin, and are seen for the first time here. No impact craters are seen, indicating a young surface. </i><br /><br />Link to article<br /><br />Link to full res .tif and jpg files <br /><br /><i>Edit: The attached photo is a crop from the full res jpg.</i> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Round and Round They Go</b><br /><br /><i>This comparison view shows a common, large vortex on Saturn as it plows through the atmosphere. The right image was taken about two Saturn rotations -- about 20 hours -- after the left image.<br /><br /><br />Such storms can be quite long-lived on gas planets like Saturn, where there are no land masses to slow down storms and dissipate their energy.<br /><br /><br />Both images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 750 nanometers. The left image was taken on April 15, 2006, at a distance of approximately 3.9 million kilometers (2.4 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 23 kilometers (14 miles) per pixel. The right image was taken on April 16, 2006, at a distance of approximately 3.8 million kilometers (2.4 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 22 kilometers (14 miles) per pixel.</i><br /><br />Link<br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>From Dark to Bright and Red to White</b><br />May 22, 2006<br /><br /><i>Cassini's landmark investigation of Saturn's yin-yang moon Iapetus, with its bright and dark hemispheres, continues to provide insights into the nature of this intriguing body.<br /><br />These two views of Iapetus primarily show terrain in the southern part of the moon's dark leading hemisphere -- the side of Iapetus that is coated with dark material. The bright south pole of Iapetus is visible, along with some terrain (at the bottom) that lies on the bright trailing hemisphere.<br /><br />The dark terrain known as Cassini Regio is uniformly dark between the equator and about 30 degrees south latitude. From there down to about 50 to 60 degrees south latitude, the dark material looks "patchy" because south-facing crater walls are bright (being largely devoid of the dark material). South of this region, only some northward-facing crater walls are still dark, while the bright terrain has a somewhat reddish color.<br /><br />See Dark-stained Iapetus for an up-close view of this transition in the northern hemisphere.<br /><br />Beyond 90 degrees south (i.e., on the trailing side), the reddish color becomes white. The region at the bottom of the color view presented here shows this "color boundary" in the bright terrain, which also marks the boundary between the leading and trailing hemispheres.<br /><br />Iapetus is 1,468 kilometers (912 miles) across. North is up in the monochrome image and rotated 16 degrees to the left in the color image.<br /><br />The monochrome image on the left was taken using a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 930 nanometers. The image was obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 8, 2006, at a distance of approximately 866,000 kilometers (538,000 miles) from Iapetus and at a Sun-Iapetus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 88 degrees. The image scale is 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel.<br /><br />The color view on the right was created by</i> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Ring Moon, Ring Shadows</b><br /><br /><i>The small, dark form of Janus cruises along in front of bright Saturn. The edge-on rings cast dramatic shadows onto the northern hemisphere.<br /><br /><br />Janus is 181 kilometers (113 miles) across.<br /><br /><br />The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 21, 2006, at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel on Janus.</i><br /><br />Link <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Raw Image</b><br /><br /><i>W00015418.jpg was taken on May 22, 2006 and received on Earth May 23, 2006. The camera was pointing toward SATURN at approximately 270,460 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the CB2 and CL2 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated.</i><br /><br />Link <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[telfrow]

<b>Help from Orion</b><br /><br /><i>The brilliant supergiant star, Rigel, emerges from behind the haze of Saturn's upper atmosphere in this Cassini view.<br /><br />Rigel in is one of the 10 brightest stars in Earth's sky and forms the left foot (sometimes referred to as the left knee) of the familiar constellation Orion.<br /><br />Imaging scientists use views like these to probe the vertical structure of haze in Saturn's upper atmosphere. The dimming of the star at each altitude in the atmosphere yields information on the density of the haze at that location.<br /><br />The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 28, 2006 at a distance of approximately 663,000 kilometers (412,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 4 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. </i><br /><br />Link <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[Leovinus]

<i>Saturn's largest moon, Titan, peaks out from under the planet's rings of ice.<br /><br />This view looks toward Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) from slightly beneath the ringplane. The dark Encke gap (325 kilometers, or 200 miles wide) is visible here, as is the narrow F ring.<br /><br />Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 28, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Titan. Image scale is 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel on Titan. </i> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>