Just released today, this portrait of Saturn’s moon Mimas showcases its striking similarity to the Death Star (pre-proton torpedoes of course). The Cassini imaging team has been hard at work processing the images from last month’s flyby and the results sure don’t disappoint! On February 13 Cassini passed Mimas at a distance of 5,900 miles…
Tag: Saturn
Rhea and the Rings
This is one of those sublime photos from Cassini that just make me smile. Taken on March 24, this raw image shows Rhea, Saturn’s second-largest moon, suspended in orbit in front of the twilight side of Saturn, its rings reduced to a thin ribbon of bands at this viewing angle. The width of the rings…
You say potato, I say Prometheus.
Here’s a nicely processed-and-polished photo of Saturn’s moon Prometheus, fresh from the Cassini imaging center at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO. Taken during the spacecraft’s flyby of the F-ring’s shepherd moon earlier this year, this image shows Prometheus’ potato-like shape and heavily cratered surface on its trailing side, dimly illuminated by reflected light…
Just Passing By
It’s been a while since I posted one of these…it’s an animation made up of 16 raw images from the Cassini spacecraft, taken on March 12, showing Saturn’s moons Dione and Titan passing each other. The small, cratered and frozen Dione couldn’t be more different than her much larger, haze-enshrouded sister Titan, but we’re reminded…
The Tao of Iapetus
With a leading side dark as charcoal and trailing side bright white, the 914-mile-wide Iapetus is literally the yin-and-yang of Saturn’s family of moons. The color variation on Iapetus is due to the fine coating of dark material that falls onto its leading hemisphere, possibly sent its way by smaller, distant Phoebe traveling within the…
A Pack of Spokes
Typically, spokes in Saturn’s rings – temporary, shifting bands of material that transect the rings lengthwise – appear as bright streaks when seen from high phase angles but they show up here as subtle dark bands in this low-angle image from Cassini, taken January 27. Some of the brighter rings on the right half of…
Holy Dione
The heavily creased and cratered face of 700-mile-wide Dione is partially lit by the Sun in this image from Cassini, taken on March 4. Some of the moon’s characteristic “wispy lines” can be seen along its sunlit limb…these are the bright, exposed walls of icy canyons caused by ancient tectonic activity. The darker surface material…
Ice World
662-mile-wide Tethys, as seen by Cassini on March 3, 2010. Part of the 1200-mile-long Ithaca Chasma can be seen on its western edge, running north to south. With a density .97 times that of liquid water, Tethys is almost completely made of ice. Image has been adjusted to bring out surface details. Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science…
Hello, Helene!
On March 3 the Cassini spacecraft flew by the 22-mile-wide Helene, an irregularly-shaped moon orbiting Saturn in the same path as the much larger Dione. Cassini was about 1,200 miles from the moon when this image was taken. See more photos of Helene on the Cassini imaging center website here. Image: NASA/JPL/SSI
I can has craters?
Looking like sand on a beach after a hard rain, the surface of Rhea is literally coated with craters of all sizes, to the point where it’s hard to tell where one ends and another begins. These raw images are fresh in from Cassini’s flyby of Saturn’s second-largest moon, which occurred yesterday. The spacecraft passed…
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…
Deep Impacts
This just in, a late straggler from Cassini’s recent flyby of Mimas. It shows the northern region of the “other side” of Mimas opposite the moon’s signature Herschel crater. The sheer walls of some of the craters near the top left are 2-3 miles high – or deep, depending on how you look at it…
Lights in the Dark 