The shadow of Saturn’s rings is reduced to a thin sliver running across the face of the planet in the upper part of this image taken on August 12, one day after its spring equinox. The rings appear dark in this image, since the sunlight is striking them edge-on and Cassini’s cameras are set so…
Tag: Cassini
The Ghost and the Darkness
A spectral figure casts a long shadow as it travels along the path of Saturn’s F ring on August 7, 2009 in this image from the Cassini orbiter. Not a ghost per se but rather a clump of ring material, pulled upwards from the rest of the ring plane by what is perhaps a small…
The Ring
No, it’s not the final frame of a haunted videotape…it’s a backlit Titan, silhouetted against the sun, photographed by Cassini from over 850,000 miles away. Titan’s upper-level atmospheric haze is illuminated in this image, surrounding the moon high above the cloudtops. The haze is a mixture of complex hydrocarbons created by the breakdown of methane…
Thin Grey Line
Saturn’s expansive rings cast but a thin line of a shadow across its equator in this beautiful high-angle view taken by Cassini on July 18, 2009. The rings, normally overexposed in images to make them more visible, are instead underexposed here so some of the details of Saturn’s atmosphere can be seen. Intricate banding of…
Three Little Moons
A little family portrait from the house of Saturn. Enceladus, Tethys and Dione. Okay, they weren’t really all lined up like that….I combined three raw shots from Cassini, taken over the weekend, and lined them up nicely. Approximate sizes in relation to each other. Just for fun. Great images though! Tethys’ huge 250-mile-wide Odysseus crater…
Sunday Best
Another fantastic image of one of my favorite subjects from the Cassini mission: the little shepherd moon Daphnis and its icy wake within the Keeler gap. This is an adjusted version of a raw image taken Saturday, July 11, and received at the imaging center in Boulder, CO later the same day. See the original…
Subtle Shades
The intricate structure of Saturn’s rings is seen here in this raw image from Cassini, taken yesterday. This (I believe) shows the dark material of the Cassini Division (bottom) below the brighter bands of the A ring (middle to top). I could be mistaken though, and this is instead the inner section of the B…
Shepherds Passing
 Without as much as a wave shepherd moons Prometheus and Atlas pass by each other, each on their own paths around the rings. Prometheus, casting a long shadow,  pulls at the F ring’s bands of material while smaller Atlas guards the edges of the A ring. The larger is 93 miles across at its…
Out of the Shadows
A stunning image by Cassini, received today, of Daphnis splashing through the Keeler Gap (as seen in my last post). In this photo the sunlight is coming from the opposite direction though. Saturn’s massive shadow falls upon the rings on the right side of this image. Background stars can be seen through the rings. From…
Wave Forms
Cast shadows reveal some interesting structure in the waves sent up by little Daphnis in this image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on June 26, 2009. Daphnis orbits Saturn within the 26-mile-wide Keeler gap in the A ring. Its gravity disrupts the edges of the gap, carving scalloped edges in the ring material and also,…
Explaining Enceladus
This JPL video highlights Enceladus and explains some of the recent discoveries about this mysterious moon of Saturn. Enjoy! more about “Explaining Enceladus“, posted with vodpod
Pieces of Flare
 With Enceladus in the spotlight this week (see previous post) Cassini’s camera was trained on the icy moon and captured several images which seem to show its signature polar jets in action. Spliced together, these photos create an intriguing animation that, while not exactly clear as to what’s going on, is interesting to watch….
Lights in the Dark 