Images of Saturn and its Moons

halcyondays · Mar 26, 2006

It's a tough choice, but I'd say that this Enceladus shot is about the most extraordinary yet from Cassini. How much better can it get !!

telfrow · Mar 27, 2006

Thanks for posting the color image. I'd seen and posted the raw B&W in the Cassini thread, but this image is just amazing. Thanks, yet again, for all your work. <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>

Swampcat · Mar 27, 2006

I just saw your post in M&L and was going to post a link to this thread...but you found it before I wrote the post. "Thanks, yet again, for all your work." My pleasure. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · Mar 27, 2006

This image of Rhea was taken on March 26 from approximately 2,112,000 km (IR1, GRN & UV3 filters). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

mikeemmert · Mar 27, 2006

Damn. I need pictures of Rhea bad. Thanks for the Enceladus images, though.

Swampcat · Mar 27, 2006

OK. What the heck. This image of Rhea was taken March 21 from approximately 82,400 km. (IR3, GRN & UV3 filters). Full size image (1005x997, 195kb) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · Mar 27, 2006

This image of Rhea was taken March 21 from approximately 142,000 km. (IR3, GRN & UV3 filters) Full size image (997x1011, 179kb) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · Mar 27, 2006

Another image of Rhea. This was was taken on March 21 from approximately 112,000 km away. (IR3, GRN & UV3 filters) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · Mar 27, 2006

Here's Rhea again, taken March 21 from approximately 93,000 km. (IR3, GRN & UV3 filters) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · Mar 27, 2006

Mike, I can get more if you need them. Like I said, I kinda gave up after seeing so much data loss in the raws, but I can always put the rest of them together if you need them. It might take me a couple of days though -- there were quite a lot of them. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

mikeemmert · Mar 27, 2006

Thanks a lot, swampcat. I really appreciate your hard work. I was, of course, looking for something specific, so I'll tell you what that is. I was looking for an extremely large crater, like Odysseus on Tethys, or Aesgard or Valhalla on Callisto. If it's not there, then it's not there. That's called, "science", meaning that you might have some kind of theory that has no actual basis in observation in some specific cases. Anyway, no large crater that I can see. This from Wikipedia: "Rhea is heavily cratered and has bright wispy markings on its surface. Its surface can be divided into two geologically different areas based on crater density; the first area contains craters which are larger than 40 km in diameter, whereas the second area, in parts of the polar and equatorial regions, has craters under that size. This suggests that a major resurfacing event occurred some time during its formation." Are the bright wispy markings the remains of a Lagrange crash site? Welllllllllllllllll...I don't know about that. It doesn't look like the other Lagrange crash sites (check Miranda for the best ones). I hypothesize that objects formed at Lagrange points L4 and L5 throughout the Solar system. Saturn and Rhea have the right mass ratio and so has Lagrange points. Unfortunately, Lagrange points are not as stable as legend would have it. If they were, we would see large objects there, and we don't. But we do see craters in many cases. Why are Lagrange points unstable? Lagrange was widely hailed for coming up with a limited solution to the three body problem. So let's count 'em up. One: Saturn. Two: Rhea. Three: L4. Four: L5. It's the four body problem! Doh.......... This looks like one of those c

Swampcat · Mar 27, 2006

Hey, no problem, Mike. Just curious, though...how big a crater would it have to be to fit your hypothesis? It's true that Rhea doesn't have a 400km diameter crater like Tethys, but it does have 2 40 km diameter impact basins in close proximity. Could these have come from a single object that broke up before impact? To my untrained eye, it looks like they are about the same age. That still doesn't match the impactor of Tethys, which comes back to my question concerning crater size. Is there a lower limit to the size of this possible Lagrange object. Just speculating <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

mikeemmert · Mar 27, 2006

Well, there seems to be a lower limit, yes. Something like between a third and an eighth of the diameter of an outer planet moon. What I have mostly been looking for in this project is signs of low-energy processes; gravitational capture, like Titan and Triton, or a slow-motion collision, like Miranda or Mimas. Some writers have remarked that they can't see how Mimas held together under the impact. My hypothesis is that the impactor was larger and much slower than that writer was thinking. Lagrange points L4 and L5 orbit the primary at almost the same distance as the secondary. As a result, when they get loose, they will approach the secondary right at escape velocity, plus whatever energy they absorbed when they escaped the Lagrange stability zone (which is not much. Remember, it's the four body problem). Capture into orbit is difficult for Lagrangians, but it is far, far, far less difficult than if the body came from some other place where it will have additional energy with respect to the secondary. I was really happy when Mike Brown found the lost moon of Triton. The energy Triton lost was imparted to Xena, which flung it way out there. But every silver lining has a cloud; when I simulated it, I couldn't get the orbital inclination. So now I have to hypothesize another unknown object to account for that (Nemesis). Fortunately there's other evidence for the newly hypothesised object (Buffy and the slain dinosaurs). At least Xena is no longer unknown. Notice that the pictures of the moons of the outer planets all show their most photogenic side. This one-sided view doesn't help much. Where can I find pictures of the other side of these objects? Thanks to Tony Dunn of GravitySimulator, I have been made aware of another 1:1 resonance, the "horseshoe" orbit. Such an orbit might result in only one object instead of two. But I think the evidence is pretty stro

mikeemmert · Mar 29, 2006

Look at this!! Smooth & creamy... This is the Wikipedia image. I have spent quite a bit of time today going over old posts in this and other threads. What a treasure trove! I find this image interesting. It looks like, #!, Telesto is covered with snow. #2, the surface looks very young. I think this is snow coming from Enceladus that got a gravitational boost as it swept away. The other Lagrangian moons also appear to have smoooth sufaces, but the pictures were taken from too far away to be able to tell. Polydeuces is already in a semi-unstable orbit, wandering up to 32 degrees from the Lagrange point. I believe it will "soon" crash, and another one will form. These don't get to be as big as the original Lagrangians like Odyseus. I'd sure like to thank swampcat and rlb2 for all the work they've done over the long period of this thread's posts. Lots of material here.

Swampcat · Apr 3, 2006

Just for the fun of it, I put together this image of some of Saturn's moons with the idea of depicting the smoothness factor, particularly contrasting the smooth moons with Hyperion and its rougher surface. Of course, as you say, this could just be a result of distance. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · Apr 3, 2006

Tethys image taken April 02 from approximately 3,520,000 kilometers away. (RED, GRN & BL1 filters) Full size image (980x983, 34kb) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · Apr 9, 2006

Iapetus from approximately 866,000 km. IR1, GRN & UV3 filters. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · Apr 14, 2006

Another view of Iapetus. This one was taken April 11 from approximately 606,000 kilometers away. IR1, GRN & UV3 filters. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · Apr 17, 2006

This color of image of Saturn was made from raw images taken April 16 from approximately 3,694,000 km away. (CB1, GRN & BL2 filters). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · May 1, 2006

This color image of Janus was taken April 29 from approximately 222,000 kilometers away. (RED, GRN & BL1 filters). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

Swampcat · May 1, 2006

This color image of Rhea was taken April 28 from approximately 478,000 kilometers away. (RED, GRN & BL1 filters) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."Thomas Jefferson </div>

rlb2 · May 4, 2006

Some new incoming images of Titan. I colorized and tried to increase contrast, here is what I ended up with. PIA07785.5 <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

rlb2 · May 4, 2006

PIA08425.5 <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

rlb2 · May 4, 2006

Cassini Flies by Titan, Sees More Craters May 03, 2006 Saturn's moon Titan continued to surprise scientists during a flyby that took Cassini into regions previously unexplored by radar. Two very noticeable circular features, possible impact craters or calderas, appear in the latest radar images taken during the flyby on April 30, 2006. The flyby targeted Xanadu, one of the most prominent features on Titan, visible even from telescopes on Earth. The origin of Xanadu is still unknown, but the radar images reveal details previously unseen, such as numerous curvy features that may indicate fluid flows. Scientists speculate that two prominent circular features are probably impact craters but they don't rule out the possibility that they might be calderas or volcanoes. Sand dunes, discovered in previous flybys, continue to crisscross Titan's surface. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1092 Volcano, impact crater or just some giant sink-hole??? PIA08426.5 <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

michaelmozina · May 4, 2006

Some new video of Saturn's moon Titan came out today. It's quite amazing actually. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia08118.html Here is a 16 megabyte quicktime movie with narration of the view form Huygens as it landed on Jan. 14, 2005. http://www.nasa.gov/mov/148112main_pia08118-320-cc.mov <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland </div>

Images of Saturn and its Moons

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