In a bit of sisterly silliness, Rhea appears to have photojacked an otherwise lovely portrait of her big sister Titan in this image from Cassini! An honest mistake, I’m sure….the smaller moon quickly realized her transgression and exited the scene shortly after: 🙂 In all seriousness though, these photos illustrate the amazing differences in Saturn’s…
Tag: moons
A Passing of Spheres
Rhea overlaps sister moon Dione in this image, taken by Cassini on October 22. One of a series of raw images showing the moons approach and then pass each other. Even at their closest passing the two moons are separated by more than 90,000 miles. Image: NASA/JPL/SSI
It’s a Marvelous Night for a Moondance
In another animation made from raw images taken by Cassini, Mimas passes in front of Rhea (?), whose face is partially covered by Saturn’s rings…which in turn are darkened by the shadow of the planet itself. I removed distracting background stars, as well as dust and streaks often seen in raw photos. Rhea is 950…
Just Passing By
Tethys, shown in my previous post, orbits Saturn outside the rings in this animation made from 17 raw images taken by Cassini. After passing the dark side of Saturn Tethys follows the curve of the rings, and is passed on the “inside track” by the smaller Mimas (top). Meanwhile another moon, perhaps Atlas or Pandora,…
Around the Track
Shepherd moons Prometheus and Daphnis race around Saturn’s rings within their respective gaps, affecting the ring material in their own distinct ways. Prometheus, on the left side, pulls the bright, ropy F ring into streamers while tiny Daphnis, embedded in the 25-mile-wide Keeler gap at lower center, sends up a mound of darker A ring…
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…
As The World Turns
 A very cool animation sequence by Gordan U., showing 21 sequences of the Jupiter system. Big Daddy Jove, clouds a-churnin’, all the kids running around. Nice work Gordan! Animation: Gordan Ugarkovic. Used with permission.
Hail, Calypso
A lesser-known moon, Calypso orbits Saturn in the same path as Tethys and another miniature moon called Telesto. Known as the “Tethys Trojans”, these two oblong-shaped moons were discovered in 1980 by Earth-based telescopes and eventually photographed by Cassini. The moniker “trojan” in astronomy is reserved for satellites that orbit a planet in the same…
Streaking Past Pallene
The bright point of light in this raw image isn’t a star. It’s one of Saturn’s 61 known moons, the tiny 3-mile-wide Pallene (pronounced pal-LEE-nee). This little moon’s orbit is between those of much larger Mimas and Enceladus, around 131,000 miles out from Saturn. Only recently discovered in 2004 by the Cassini team, not much…
Lights in the Dark 