…it’s a space sta– oh nevermind. It is a moon. 😉 Photos are in from Cassini’s flyby of Mimas on Saturday and they don’t disappoint! The 250-mile wide inner moon of Saturn performed very well in front of Cassini’s cameras, displaying its heavily-cratered surface and showing off its trademark Herschel crater; at 88 miles wide…
Tag: Cassini
Signs of a Hidden Sea
Cassini mission scientists have more support for the existence of an underground ocean on Enceladus, in the form of negatively-charged ions present in the moon’s southern ice geysers. In a report released February 8, 2009, the Cassini Science League announced that researchers have identified these ions using the spacecraft’s plasma spectrometer data from recent flybys…
Shear Delight
Monstrous eddies in Saturn’s upper atmosphere are clearly visible in this near-infrared image from Cassini, taken in November 2009 and released on NASA’s planetary Photojournal on February 4. Winds on Saturn are some of the fastest in the solar system, blowing around the planet in opposing bands at speeds of several hundreds of miles per…
Carnival of Space #140
Welcome! I’m very honored to host the 140th edition of Carnival of Space here on Lights in the Dark, especially considering that this week marks this site’s one-year anniversary! It’s really been a fascinating year for me. I’ve had a lot of fun finding and featuring images from the various missions exploring our solar system…from…
Moons Near and Far…and More to Come!
246-mile-wide Mimas (foreground) and 70-mile-wide Epimetheus bracket a section of Saturn’s rings in this color-calibrated image from the Cassini spacecraft, taken in October 2009. Happily, we can expect to see beautiful images like this for another  7 years…NASA has extended the Cassini mission until at least 2017! During that time Cassini will transition into its…
Prometheus Passing
Prometheus, shepherd moon of Saturn’s F ring, is featured in this dramatic image from Cassini taken as it passed by at a distance of 23,000 miles (37,014 km) on January 27, 2010. This is the closest Cassini has come to Prometheus. The image above has been extensively cleaned up in regard to CCD pixel noise…
Remembering Titan
This image was first released five years ago today, on January 15, 2005. It shows the murky surface of Saturn’s moon Titan as seen by the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe after it made its historic descent through the moon’s thick haze and clouds and landed in a frozen plain of methane mud and icy…
Groovy
Concentric ringlets within Saturn’s wide B-ring create a mesmerizing pattern in this raw image from the Cassini spacecraft, taken on January 11. Click for a full-size version; for me, looking at the bright ringlets too long can have a disorienting effect. Nearly 16,000 miles wide, the B ring system is estimated to be less than…
Cruisin’
Another look at Daphnis, this time in a beautiful color-calibrated RGB image by Gordan Ugarkovic. Click for a larger view. Image: NASA/JPL/SSI/Gordan Ugarkovic. Used with permission.
The Outside Track
This quick animation was created from 6 raw images taken by Cassini on January 7. Focusing on Saturn’s rings from above, the little shepherd moon Daphnis can be seen emerging from the planet’s cast shadow. Traveling within the Keeler gap, 5-mile-wide Daphnis pushes the ring material in front of it into scalloped waves and kicks…
A Visit to Prometheus
This raw image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on December 26, 2009 (on a certain space blogger’s birthday, by the way) shows an amazing view of Prometheus, one of Saturn’s many shepherd moons. This is the closest yet that Cassini has come to the 96-mile-long oblong moon. Details of its cratered surface are visible, as…
Reflecting on Titan
This soon-to-be historic image, released today, shows a glint of sunlight reflecting off the surface of a lake on Titan. Taken by the Cassini spacecraft’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) in July 2009, the image has been extensively researched by scientists to make sure it was in fact a reflection off of a liquid…
Lights in the Dark 