Cassini’s camera caught Enceladus in just the right light this past Saturday, backlit by the sun and showing off its signature icy jets. Emanating from fractures in its southern polar region, the jets are composed of water ices and hint at possible liquid water existing beneath its surface, kept liquid by heat from the…
Tag: Cassini
The Shadows of Spring
As Saturn’s springtime approaches on August 11 it is gradually moving into a position when its rings will be perfectly aligned with its orbital plane, causing them to be lit by the sun edge-on. During the months until then many of the moons of Saturn will be casting their shadows upon the rings, fleeting…
King of the Gods
This image, taken over 9 years ago by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft on its way to Saturn, is still hailed as one of the best photos ever taken of Jupiter. Actually a carefully crafted composite of 27 images, this image took more than an hour to capture. It later had to be painstakingly adjusted to account…
Sheer Elegance
Viewed from the unlit side, the delicate transparency of Saturn’s innermost “C” Ring becomes apparent in this photo. Saturn’s upper atmospheric haze can be seen through the dark material of the rings. This photo shows a natural color view. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
The Dark Side
The dark side of Tethys is illuminated by reflected light from Saturn in this image from the Cassini orbiter. On the sunlit side, the giant Odysseus crater can be seen straddling the western edge. The crater is 280 miles across in its entirety, taking up a large portion of the 660-mile-wide moon’s icy surface….
The Pull of Prometheus
Prometheus’ effect on Saturn’s ropy F ring is evident in this photo from Cassini, taken March 7, 2009. As the irregularly-shaped shepherd moon approaches the ring material in its looping orbit around Saturn, it draws material from the ring in towards itself, warping and stretching the ring particles into waving streamers that eventually settle and…
Making Waves
Little Daphnis sends waves curling in its wake as it courses along the Keeler Gap in Saturn’s A-ring in this photo from Cassini’s narrow-angle camera. The image was taken on January 31, 2009, approximately 532,000 miles from Daphnis and the rings. Daphnis is about 5 miles in diameter. The Keeler Gap is 26 miles…
Ringshine
Moons Dione and Janus are crescent-lit by the scattered light of Saturn’s F-ring, a narrow, clumpy ring with a bright core of water ice particles. (Dione is in the foreground.) This photo was rendered in true color by Gordan Ugarkovic using raw image data. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Gordan Ugarkovic.
News Post: Cassini Photos New Moon
Cassini scientists have identified the presence of a previously unknown moonlet within Saturn’s thin G-ring, as seen in this series of photos spanning about ten minutes of time. The moonlet, only about a third of a mile wide, is the bright streak traveling in the center of the ring. (The other streaks are overexposed stars in…
Saturn’s Southern Cyclone
A great spiraling whirlpool of wind-whipped clouds wraps around Saturn’s southern pole, photographed here in polarized infrared light by Cassini on July 15, 2008. Towering white clouds mark areas of rising heat from deep within the atmosphere. The winds around the vortex have been measured at over 300mph (480 km/h). This photo shows an area…
Glamour Shot
A nicely-modeled Mimas, in sunlit backlighting and a soft cast from reflected light off Saturn. Taken by the Cassini orbiter on January 23 at a distance of 316,ooo miles. (Mimas is about 246 miles wide.) Image credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Stormy Skies
A blue-tinted circular storm blemishes Saturn’s creamy complexion while wispy rings slice the planet with their shadows. This photo, shown in true color, was taken by Cassini’s wide-angle camera at an orbiting distance of 662,000 miles. Saturn is mostly atmosphere, and a stormy one at that, made of hydrogen, helium and traces of ammonia and…
Lights in the Dark 