Tag Archives: Cassini

We never see Saturn presenting a crescent phase from here on Earth. What you need is a spacecraft. To wit:

This image of crescent Saturn in natural colour was taken by the robotic Cassini spacecraft in 2007. It captures Saturn’s rings from the side of the ring plane opposite the Sun — the unilluminated side — another vista not visible from Earth. Visible are subtle colours of cloud bands, the complex shadows of the rings on the planet, and the shadow of the planet on the rings. The moons Mimas, at 2 o’clock, and Janus 4 o’clock, can be seen as specks of light, but the real challenge is to find Pandora (8 o’clock). From Earth, Saturn’s disk is nearly full now and opposite the Sun. Along with bright fellow giant planet Jupiter it rises in the early evening.

(Image: NASA, ESA, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team)

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Images of the rings of Saturn pix 1,2: (outer (B) ring, pix 1,2; inner (A) ring, pic 3 and a detail of a density wave, pic 4) taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, now in the midst of its ‘ring grazing’ phase as it moves in to study the outer and inner disks of orbiting ice and rock.

These images are twice the resolution of anything previously achievable and allow objects as small as 550m (about the height of the CN Tower in Toronto) to be discerned.

Full resolution photos here.

Previously: The Seas Of Titan

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No, it’s an extreme close up of Saturn’s sixth largest moon Enceladus taken by NASA’s Cassini orbiter. Normally, the moon would appear bright white. Here, the 500km wide iceball is glamour-lit by sunlight reflected off Saturn, resulting in a healthy tan.

NASA sez:

As most of the illumination comes from the image left, a labyrinth of ridges throws notable shadows just to the right of the image center, while the kilometer-deep canyon Labtayt Sulci is visible just below. The bright thin crescent on the far right is the only part of Enceladus directly lit by the Sun. The above image was taken last year by the robotic Cassini spacecraft during a close pass by by the enigmatic moon. Inspection of the lower part of this digitally sharpened image reveals plumes of ice crystals thought to originate in a below-surface sea.

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