Every six to nine months or so the Cassini Imaging Center dumps orbiter image data into NASA’s Planetary Data System, or PDS. This data is accessible to anyone with an internet connection, but it can be a little awkward to find exactly what you’re looking for (unless you’re familiar with the technical nomenclature of the…
Search Results for: Rhea
Afternoon Delight
I spotted this on the SDO site late this afternoon…it shows an eruption of plasma from the Sun’s photosphere that stretches out many tens of thousands of miles…the Earth could easily fit many times over beneath the looping structure! This image is from about 5pm EDT (21:59 UT), and shows the eastern limb of the Sun,…
Dione in the Distance
Cassini looks past the southern pole of Rhea to get a view of Dione on the far side of the rings in this image, captured on January 11, 2011. Rhea, Saturn’s second-largest moon, is approximately 950 miles in diameter and is literally covered in craters. Dione, also heavily cratered, is nearly 700 miles wide. It’s…
A Solar Bullet
Can’t see the video below? Click here. Around 12:38 pm EST today, an energetic sunspot region on the Sun released a flare in our direction. The video above, a crop from an SDO AIA 171 mpeg, shows the shifting coronal loops surrounding sunspot 1158 as it rotates into view over the past day or so….
The Feeling’s Mutual
Dione slips behind Rhea in this animation made from 19 raw images taken by the Cassini spacecraft on January 20, 2011. Called a mutual event, the two moons seem to just miss each other – even though in reality they are separated by over 93,400 miles! Rhea and Dione are similar in composition and size,….
A Peak Inside
Here’s a close-up look at the central peak of our moon’s Aitken Crater, part of an image captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on January 11, 2010. Taken at an angle, this view offers a nice sense of relief and perspective on a lunar feature not normally visible in direct-overhead shots. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has…
A Close Pass
Here’s a close-up look at the extensively-cratered surface of Rhea, Saturn’s second-largest moon, captured by Cassini as it performed its closest flyby yet on the morning of January 11, 2010. Passing a mere 43 miles (69 km) over the surface, Cassini got a great look at some of the deep craters that literally cover the…
Saturn’s Skyline
A raw image from Cassini taken on January 9, 2011, this minimally-composed image is actually quite fascinating (IMO): it’s a look at the upper levels of Saturn’s atmosphere in methane wavelength! Yes, Saturn is a gas giant and most of its volume is made up of hydrogen and helium, but there are layers of its…
Flare Up
I caught this image this morning on the SDO site…it shows an eruption of plasma from the Sun’s photosphere that stretches out several tens of thousands of miles…the hooked loop at the end could easily encircle the entire Earth! This image is from about 11am or so, within a couple of hours the structure had…
A Sphere of Ice
Here’s a wonderfully crisp portrait of Saturn’s moon Rhea, taken by Cassini on October 17, 2010 at an altitude of 24,300 miles. Illuminated on the right by sunlight, the left hemisphere is dimly lit by reflected light from Saturn. Rhea is Saturn’s second-largest moon after Titan, but at 950 miles across (compared to 3,200) Rhea is…
Solar Maelstrom
A powerful sunspot creates a spinning whirlpool of magnetic activity around itself in this detail from an SDO image (AIA 304) taken today, June 24. Sunspots are darker areas on the sun’s surface (photosphere) where a “bubble” of magnetic fields have risen from the interior and “pushed aside” the hotter layers at the surface to…
As The Day Is Long
Happy Summer Solstice! A this is the day that the Earth’s northern hemisphere receives the longest amount of sunlight during the course of the year, I thought it only appropriate to feature a pic of the Sun! Above is a detail from a high-resolution image taken today by the Solar Dynamics Observatory showing some very…
Lights in the Dark 