Images of Saturn and its Moons

vogon13 · Apr 5, 2005

Kind of a Saturn moon Rorsarch effect. I 'see' Munch's 'The Scream' when I look at this one. <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>

CalliArcale · Apr 5, 2005

The many different colored splotches are startling, but interesting. They demonstrate that most of the Cassini pictures are not star-studded, even though they look like it. These splotches are just noise. If they were stars, they would appear on all three filters, instead of each appearing in one of the three filters used for this image, randomly distributed. <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>

CalliArcale · Apr 5, 2005

Here's an interesting pic. Enceladus and Rhea are in this picture. The relative size of the two moons is striking -- especially when you consider that Enceladus is the close one! <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>

Swampcat · Apr 5, 2005

"The many different colored splotches are startling..." I considered removing the splotches, but figured someone would find them interesting (evidence of ETI?<img src="/images/icons/tongue.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>

CalliArcale · Apr 5, 2005

Well, I found it interesting, so I'm glad you didn't. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> I'd often wondered whether any of the dots on some of the Cassini pictures were stars, figuring stars should be too faint to appear in most moon images (Iapetus pictures featuring Cassini Regio are an obvious exception as those are long exposures). Make it into a color picture, and it's absolutely plain as day that they're just noise. Fascinating! Now *that* is a good argument in favor of this kind of color imagery! And it's not one I would have thought of previously. <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>

Swampcat · Apr 5, 2005

"Is it possible to crop 2 consecutive (or nearly consective) Cassini images so that only the portions of the 2 pictures that overlap are posted here, side by side, small enough to fit on the screen at the same time so the "cross-eyed" 3D process would work?" I didn't want you to think I had forgotten about this. I tried a couple, but got very little depth -- probably because of the distance involved. I'll keep trying, but in the meantime, if you find anything you think might be usable let me know and I'll see what I can do. <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 5, 2005

Titan (IR2, MT2 & VIO filters). Raw images taken on March 31, 2005 and received on Earth April 01, 2005. The camera was pointing toward TITAN at approximately 34,000 kilometers away. Full size image (1024x1024, 27kb) <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>

vogon13 · Apr 5, 2005

Well, I figured it would be tricky. Thought, perhaps the spacecraft motion would be too much actually, and make the effect too extreme. Also, area of overlap in most cases probalbly isn't a very large percentage of the image. Having Cassini moving camera perpendicularly to direction of motion most likely really messes with the perspective. Sorry if I had you burning a lot of CPU time for something that may not be feasible without images specifically targeted for 3D viewing. Hubble managed to shoot some pictures of Saturn that the effect was amazing on, Astronomy Magazine had 4 Hubble Saturn picks lined up aligned to show changing orientation of ring system as Saturn orbits the sun, the effect was very intense. The Saturn aurora pictures in this thread are close to working, but cropping has hindered the effect. Thanx! <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>

Swampcat · Apr 9, 2005

Three views of Rhea (red, green and blue filters). Raw images taken with wide angle camera March 30, 2005 from a distance approximately 138,000 km. Full size image (1420x482, 47kb) <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>

silylene old · Apr 9, 2005

I'd often wondered whether any of the dots on some of the Cassini pictures were stars... Interesting artifical construct buried in the shadow of that big crater! It has a green signal light, to signal to the small craft darting around Epimetheus! And those small ships have so many pretty-colored running lights! The airlock door is in the bottom of that crater, hard to see in the shadows. The asteroid is heavily tunneled, as you can tell from the collapsed tunnel near the large crater. There! See I can open my mind to other possibilities. *chuckle* <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> Actually a very interesting moon, it looks like a jagged fragment ejected from a very ancient collision. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center">I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function. </div> </div>

vogon13 · May 19, 2005

Post deleted by vogon13 <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>

vogon13 · May 26, 2005

{ bump } <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>

rlb2 · Jun 8, 2005

Recent flyby of Saturn's hazy moon Titan by the Cassini spacecraft has revealed evidence of a possible volcano, which could be a source of methane in Titan's atmosphere. Images taken in infrared light show a circular feature roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) in diameter that does not resemble any features seen on Saturn's other icy moons. Scientists interpret the feature as an "ice volcano," a dome formed by upwelling icy plumes that release methane into Titan's atmosphere. The findings appear in the June 9 issue of Nature The highest resolution image obtained by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument covers an area 150 kilometers square (90 miles) that includes a bright circular feature about 30 kilometers (19 miles) in diameter, with two elongated wings extending westward. This structure resembles volcanoes on Earth and Venus, with overlapping layers of material from a series of flows. "We all thought volcanoes had to exist on Titan, and now we've found the most convincing evidence to date. This is exactly what we've been looking for," said Dr. Bonnie Buratti, team member of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer at JPL. In the center of the area, scientists clearly see a dark feature that resembles a caldera, a bowl-shaped structure formed above chambers of molten material. The material erupting from the volcano might be a methane-water ice mixture combined with other ices and hydrocarbons. Energy from an internal heat source may cause these materials to upwell and vaporize as they reach the surface. Future Titan flybys will help determine whether tidal forces can generate enough heat to drive the volcano, or whether some other energy source must be present. Black channels seen by the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which piggybacked on Cassini and landed on Titan's surface in January 2005, could have been formed by erosion from liquid methane rains following the eruptions. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

silylene old · Jun 8, 2005

This was interesting. Over the last year, I remember some rather heated debates on whether there was enough tidal warming in Titan to generate cryovolcanoes. Perhaps the naysayers should have given greater consideration to the impact of titan's highly ellipitical orbit: "The eruptions of such an ice-volcano, or 'cryo-volcano', would be caused by the heat generated during tidal movements of material inside Titan. Internal tides at Titan are expected as this moon strongly varies its distance from Saturn while it runs along its highly elliptical orbit around the mother planet. "/safety_wrapper> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center">I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function. </div> </div>

rlb2 · Jun 9, 2005

Over the last year, I remember some rather heated debates on whether there was enough tidal warming in Titan to generate cryovolcanoes. Your right - sparks were flying... It is very interesting since tidal forces would be appreciably less on Titan if it was locked into a normal surface facing elliptical orbit around Saturn....such is our moon relative to the earth... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

volcanopele2 · Jun 9, 2005

Try 1.8-2.6 km/pixel, no where NEAR 100 m (no one except Huygens DISR can achieve better than 300 m/pixel for Titan images) In terms of tidal heating, don't forget that we are talking about internal temperatures, not surface temps. this has nothing to do with a greenhouse effect or other process that would heat up the surface temperature. Don't forget that Io's average temperature is around 120 K yet it still has lavas erupting on the surface with temperatures upwards of 1500 K. True, we have yet to find a similar hotspot on Titan, but could just mean that nothing is active at the present time.

CalliArcale · Jun 10, 2005

One thing the cryovolcano theory has going for it is that it could explain the presence of methane. Since no vast global ocean of hydrocarbons has been discovered (which should please stevehw33, as he was a strong critic of that theory), something other than an ocean has to be replenishing the methane. The simplest explanation to me seems to be cryovolcanism, but of course we will have to wait and see. Since Cassini will be encountering Titan many times, hopefully it can target this object again, and if we're lucky, it will erupt between two passes and we can tell for sure whether it is a cryovolcano. You make a good point about how not finding active cryovolcanos doesn't mean they don't exist. There's a fair amount of luck involved in finding these things. Io's probably the only place where it's easy, because it's just so phenomenally active. Here's a question regarding tidal heating. Io is partly heated by interactions with the other Galilean satellites. Could interactions with other Saturnian moons help heat Titan, or are they just too small and too far separated from Titan to have an appreciable effect? <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>

vogon13 · Jun 27, 2005

{bump} <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>

rlb2 · Jun 28, 2005

Lake Titan is about 145 miles by 45 miles (234 km by 73 km), about the size of Lake Ontario on the U.S.-Canadian border, Cassini scientists said in a statement. "This feature is unique in our exploration of Titan so far," said Elizabeth Turtle, Cassini imaging team associate at the University of Arizona. "Its perimeter is intriguingly reminiscent of the shorelines of lakes on Earth that are smoothed by water erosion and deposition." It lies in Titan's cloudiest region, where astronomers believe there might be methane rain. "It's possible that some of the storms in this region are strong enough to make methane rain that reaches the surface," said Cassini team member Tony DelGenio of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Because of extreme cold temperatures on Titan, the liquid methane could take a long time to evaporate, which would let a methane-filled lake last for a long while, DelGenio said. The dark splotch might also be a former lake that has now dried, or a broad depression filled with dark, solid hydrocarbons, the scientists said. Here is a better article on this... http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=17272 I colorized and enlarged the provided greyscale image. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

Swampcat · Jul 2, 2005

This image of Saturn's moon Hyperion was taken June 11, 2005 from approximately 203,000 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 · Jul 2, 2005

This image of Saturn was taken June 28 from approximately 1,202,000 km (RED, GRN & BL1 filters): Full size image (1009x1007, 46kb) <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 · Jul 16, 2005

Looking through the new images at the Cassini-Huygens raw image pages and found a few interesting possibilities for "approximate full color" renderings. This first one is a view of Enceladus taken on July 14 from approximately 28,000 km away. I used the RED, GRN & BL1 filter raw images. <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 · Jul 16, 2005

This is a view of Rhea taken July 14 from approximately 179,000 km away. I used the IR3, GRN & UV3 filter raw images. Full size version (1019x1001, 166kb) <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 · Jul 16, 2005

A narrow angle camera view of Enceladus taken July 14 from approximately 18,000 km away. I used the IR3, GRN & UV3 filter raw images. A lot of the raw images are missing data. This explains the mess on the right half of the image. With due consideration for all factors that influence color in these images, I would be curious to hear from all the scientists out there concerning the color that appears mostly in the lower left side of the image. Note that I desaturated the color some as part of my processing. <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 · Jul 16, 2005

This view of Enceladus was taken from approximately 59,000 km away. I used the IR3, GRN & UV3 filters. Full size image (1003x997, 122kb) <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>

Images of Saturn and its Moons

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