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…
Tag: Saturn
Reflecting on Titan
This soon-to-be historic image, released today, shows a glint of sunlight reflecting off the surface of a lake on Titan. Taken by the Cassini spacecraft’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) in July 2009, the image has been extensively researched by scientists to make sure it was in fact a reflection off of a liquid…
Eye on Iapetus
Saturn’s moon Iapetus shows its bright (and lumpy!) side in this image from Cassini, taken on November 29. Like many people I know, 914-mile-wide Iapetus has a dark side and a bright side, its bright surface composed of water ice and rock and its dark half a coating of material, most likely from the newly-discovered…
Rising from the Haze
No, it’s not the Enterprise emerging from Titan’s clouds, it’s Tethys, seen in the distance through the larger moon’s outer layer of hydrocarbon haze. Tethys’ giant Odysseus crater is easily visible adorning its north pole and slicing into its terminator. This image was taken on November 26, 2009 by the Cassini spacecraft at a…
Ennie and the Jets
Another great image from the latest flyby of Enceladus by the Cassini spacecraft, this one shows three frigid plumes firing off into space from the moon’s south pole. More images from the flyby can be seen on my previous posts, or by going to the CICLOPS site listed in the sidebar. This last flyby…
Cold and Bright
After making its flyby early Saturday morning the Cassini spacecraft captured this full-sized view of Enceladus from a distance of about 83,000 miles. (Image has been level-adjusted to bring out surface details. Original raw image can be seen here.) 318 miles across at its widest point, Enceladus’ wrinkled surface is composed of water ice that…
Images from Enceladus!
The raw images from Cassini’s eighth flyby of Enceladus are in! And they don’t disappoint…the highlight of the set so far, in my opinion, is the image above showing the moon’s signature ice geysers erupting from fracture lines called “tiger stripes” surrounding the south pole. Highlighted by sunlight, the plumes follow the lines of the…
Big Sisters
Rhea and Titan, Saturn’s two largest moons, align in Cassini’s lens in this image taken on November 19, 2009. I level-adjusted and rotated the original raw image file…”north” would be to the right in this view. Rhea is 949 miles wide, cold, icy and airless. Titan, 3,200 miles wide, is also frigidly cold but is…
Enceladus and Rhea
In another stately pas de deux as seen from the point of view of the Cassini spacecraft, moons Rhea and Enceladus slip past each other in their eternal travels around Saturn. This animation is made up of 20 raw images from Cassini, taken on November 15, level-adjusted and rotated 90º clockwise. Enceladus is about to…
An Example of Extremes
Giant, haze-covered Titan sits in front of  craggy, potato-shaped Hyperion in this image from Cassini, taken on November 13. These two vastly different moons occupy neighboring orbits and thus affect each other’s travels around Saturn…although Titan obviously takes the lead in this dance. 168-mile-wide Hyperion is forced to speed up and slow down as it…
Saturn’s Darker Side
Released November 9, 2009, this image from Cassini shows the northern night side of Saturn sending a deep shadow across its rings while the 700-mile-wide Dione looks on. The shepherd moon Pandora can be seen here as well, orbiting just outside the thin F ring, at center. The Cassini spacecraft was over 800,000 miles from…
Composition in White
949-mile-wide Rhea floats in front of the rings and the brightly-lit face of Saturn in this image from Cassini, taken on November 8. The face of Saturn, overexposed here in order to see detail in the rings and Rhea, appears as bright white, making a dramatic studio backdrop. The planet’s uppermost atmospheric haze is also…
Lights in the Dark 