A somewhat truish colorized image of Saturn’s southern hemisphere, taken by Cassini on June 26, 2010 from a distance of 1,354,284 miles (that’s over five times the distance from Earth to the moon!) I substituted Cassini’s infrared and ultraviolet raw image channels for red and blue, respectively, and adjusted the combined results (with a native…
Tag: rings
Peekaboo Moon
Here’s another color composite from Cassini, showing Rhea on the far side of the rings, its northern tip peeking through the Cassini Division. (I’m not 100% sure what smaller moon that is on the left, but my guess is either Janus or Epimetheus.) What I find interesting in this image is the bright streak within…
Skimming the Rings
Saturn’s second-largest moon Rhea passes across the face of the ringed planet in this image, color-combined from three raw images taken by Cassini on May 8, 2010. The rings are seen on edge here, a dark horizontal stripe running underneath the cratered 950-mile-wide moon, their wide shadows cast onto Saturn’s atmosphere below. I really love…
Fast Eddy
A huge swirling eddy in Saturn’s northern equatorial bands is visible in this image from Cassini, taken in wavelengths of light sensitive to methane. The planet’s rings are a bright line, illuminated by the sun and casting their shadows onto Saturn’s cloudtops. This image was taken today, April 29. Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI
Rings of Light
Viewed from its night side sunlight illuminates Saturn’s atmosphere and rings, creating brilliant arcs of light in this image from Cassini, taken on February 13. Saturn’s shadow darkens the near side of the rings while their distant Sun-facing portion casts its own shadow into the atmosphere, in the bottom half of the image. The Cassini…
Flying Pan
Making a complete orbit in just under 14 hours, the 17-mile-wide shepherd moon Pan cruises around Saturn within the Encke gap in the A ring. In the image above, taken by Cassini on January 8, we can see Pan casting a sliver of a shadow onto the outer edge of the gap as it causes…
Slices of Light
While waiting for images from Cassini’s flyby of Rhea I saw this raw image, showing the stark crescent of Enceladus above the bands of Saturn’s rings, seen edge-on. A beautiful composition that deserved sharing. Where’s the moon’s geysers, you say? Don’t worry. They’re there. They just need the right lighting. Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute UPDATE: And…
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…
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…
Lights in the Dark 