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Jupiter of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 2007
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Brightside in View
| Description |
Brightside in View |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft continues to image terrain on Iapetus that is progressively eastward of the terrain it has previously seen illuminated by sunlight. The region seen here was imaged in reflected light from Saturn at excellent resolution in the close flyby on New Year's Eve 2004 (see Iapetus by Saturn Shine). This view looks toward the equator of Iapetus (1,468 kilometers, or 912 miles across) on the moon's Saturn-facing side. North is up and rotated 11 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Iapetus. Image scale is 12 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 5, 2007 |
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Scintillating C Ring
| Description |
Scintillating C Ring |
| Full Description |
Both luminous and translucent, the C ring sweeps out of the darkness of Saturn's shadow and obscures the planet at lower left. The ring is characterized by broad, isolated bright areas, or "plateaus," surrounded by fainter material. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 19 degrees above the ringplane. North on Saturn is up. The dark, inner B ring is seen at lower right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 15, 2006 at a distance of approximately 632,000 kilometers (393,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 56 degrees. Image scale is 34 kilometers (21 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 16, 2007 |
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Titan (T16) Viewed by Cassin
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| Description |
Titan (T16) Viewed by Cassini's Radar July 22, 2006 |
| Full Description |
This radar image shows the entire scene in which hydrocarbon lakes were first discovered on Titan, near its north pole (see Lakes on Titan). This image was acquired on July 22, 2006, by Cassini's radar instrument in synthetic aperture mode. The most striking landforms are the lakes: dark patches, some circular, some irregular, many with apparently steep rims, over much of the terrain north of 70 degrees latitude. The most convincing lake forms occur at the narrowest, central part of the scene, which is at the highest latitudes. Here they have short, stubby channels leading into them, and brighter areas within that indicate either dried-up lakes or that we are seeing through a transparent liquid. The image also shows the considerable variation in the kinds of surface features found at different latitudes. Beginning at the left (20 degrees north by 142 degrees west) and heading north, a circular feature about 75 kilometers (47 miles) in diameter is seen, which could be either an impact crater or a volcanic caldera. Other less distinct circular forms are seen next, possibly including some dried lakes, followed by some ridge-like terrain with dark meandering channels or valleys. The dark lakes begin to appear next (at about 70 degrees north), with more distinct lakes in the middle of the scene, where the swath is closest to the pole and starts to descend to the south. Farther on, apparently dry lakes and canyons begin to dominate, and the region becomes more complex and etched. At the extreme right end, dunes similar to those seen previously mingle with brighter features. The swath ends at 13 degrees north by 347 degrees west. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. *Credit:* NASA/JPL |
| Date |
January 11, 2007 |
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Shadows on Ice
| Description |
Shadows on Ice |
| Full Description |
Canyons and mountain peaks snake along the terminator on the crater-covered, icy moon Dione. With the Sun at a low angle on their local horizon, the line of mountain ridges above center casts shadows toward the east. Sunlit terrain seen here is on the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Dione (1,126 kilometers, or 700 miles across) -- the side that always faces away from Saturn. North is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 15, 2006 at a distance of approximately 299,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 81 degrees. Image scale is 2 kilometers (1 mile) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 17, 2007 |
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Saturnian Psychedelia
| Description |
Saturnian Psychedelia |
| Full Description |
This psychedelic view of Saturn and its rings is a composite made from images taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 728, 752 and 890 nanometers. Cassini acquired the view on Dec. 13, 2006 at a distance of approximately 822,000 kilometers (511,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 46 kilometers (28 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 19, 2007 |
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Moon and Its Handiwork
| Description |
Moon and Its Handiwork |
| Full Description |
Prometheus interacts gravitationally with the inner flanking ringlets of the F ring, creating dark channels as it passes. This image was taken in a complete azimuthal scan of the rings, during which Cassini followed Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) around the rings for one complete orbit, or about 14 hours. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 41 degrees above the ringplane. The moon is partly lit by sunlight (at left) and elsewhere lit by reflected light from Saturn. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 23, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Prometheus and at a Sun-Prometheus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 152 degrees. Image scale is 9 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 4, 2007 |
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The Vanishing Rings
| Description |
The Vanishing Rings |
| Full Description |
Saturn's entire main ring system spreads out below Cassini in this night side view, which shows the rings disappearing into the planet's shadow. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 48 degrees above the ringplane. In the upper right corner lies the darkened northern hemisphere, beneath it, the lit side of the rings casts reflected sunlight, or ringshine, onto southern latitudes, lighting up the skies there. A sliver of light from Saturn's sunlit side pierces the top of the image. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 5, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 69 kilometers (43 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 9, 2007 |
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At Opposition
| Description |
At Opposition |
| Full Description |
With the Sun directly behind Cassini, the spacecraft spies the opposition surge in Saturn's inner A ring. The opposition effect becomes visible from this special viewing geometry. See Opposition Surge on the A Ring for a detailed description of the effect. This view looks toward the rings from about 11 degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 2, 2006 at a distance of approximately 287,000 kilometers (178,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 3, 2007 |
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Stars and Stripes ... and Sp
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| Description |
Stars and Stripes ... and Spokes |
| Full Description |
From on high, the Cassini spacecraft spots a group of faint spokes against the striped landscape of the B ring, the dark region in the middle of the rings here. The spokes appear as irregular blotches, bright against the unlit side of the rings. Outside the rings, at about the two o'clock position in the image, is the moon Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across). The two points of light below center, on both sides of the F ring, are not the shepherd moons Prometheus and Pandora, but rather, are stars in the background. Other faint stars are also visible in the image. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 46 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 20, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 144 degrees. Image scale is 109 kilometers (68 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 22, 2007 |
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Unknown Origin
| Description |
Toward Morning |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft continues to observe brightness variations along the orbital direction within Saturn's B ring. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 53 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible red light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 17, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 30, 2007 |
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Breakup Captured?
| Description |
Breakup Captured? |
| Full Description |
These two images, taken about eight minutes apart, show clump-like structures and a great deal of dust in Saturn's ever-changing F ring. The images show an object-interior to and detached from the bright core of the F ring that appears to be breaking up into discrete clumps. Cassini scientists have been monitoring clumps in the F ring for more than two years now, trying to understand whether these represent small permanent moonlets or transient aggregates of material. (See The Clump/Moon Mystery) This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 35 degrees above the ringplane. The images were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 23, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 12 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 26, 2007 |
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The Bends
| Description |
The Bends |
| Full Description |
Bright undulations disturb a faint ringlet drifting through the center of the Encke Gap. This ring structure shares the orbit of the moon Pan. A second, fainter ringlet is visible below the central ringlet. This view looks toward the lit side of the rings from about 44 degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 14, 2006 at a distance of approximately 462,000 kilometers (287,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 2 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 24, 2007 |
|
Titan Dunes over Possible Cr
…
| Description |
Titan Dunes over Possible Craters (T23) |
| Full Description |
This radar image of Titan's well-known dunes is distinctive because it may show an age relationship between different classes of features on the surface of this frigid world. Taken by Cassini's radar mapper on Jan. 13, 2007, during a flyby of Titan, three kinds of terrain can be seen. Throughout the image, the fine striping has been identified as dunes, possibly made from organic material and formed by wind activity. Dunes are a common landform on Titan (see Two Sides of Dunes and Swimming in Dunes). The bright material at the lower right of the image is interpreted as being topographically higher than the dunes that go around it, and several circular features seen at the top center may be craters that are slowly being buried by the dunes. Since the dunes seem to lie over the craters, the dune activity probably occurred later in time. This image was taken in synthetic aperture mode and has a resolution of approximately 350 meters (1,150 feet). North is toward the top left corner of the image, which is approximately 160 kilometers (100 miles) long by 150 kilometers (90 miles) wide. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. *Credit:* NASA/JPL |
| Date |
January 24, 2007 |
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Agitators of the Atmosphere
| Description |
Agitators of the Atmosphere |
| Full Description |
Two bright vortices roll across the cloud-lined face of Saturn, where winds howl at high speeds never experienced on Earth. This view was acquired at about the same time as Cloud Lanes but the planet appears darker here. This is because the spectral filter used to acquire this image looks at a part of the spectrum where methane absorption in Saturn's atmosphere is stronger. Thus, photons do not penetrate as deep into the Saturn atmosphere as they do at the wavelengths observed in Cloud Lanes. Since more photons are absorbed here, the planet looks darker. The icy particles composing the rings do not contain methane, and therefore appear bright relative to Saturn. The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 862 nanometers. The view was obtained using the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 13, 2006 at a distance of approximately 775,000 kilometers (481,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 43 kilometers (27 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 31, 2007 |
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Into the Shadow
| Description |
The strands of Saturn's F ring disappear into the darkness of the planet's shadow. Background stars make trails across the sky during the long exposure. |
| Full Description |
The strands of Saturn's F ring disappear into the darkness of the planet's shadow. Background stars make trails across the sky during the long exposure. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 55 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 3, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.4 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 108 degrees. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
February 9, 2007 |
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Odysseus on the Edge II
| Description |
Odysseus on the Edge II |
| Full Description |
See Odysseus on the Edge for original comparison image. From that caption: These side-by-side natural color and false-color views show cratered terrain on the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Tethys -- the side that always faces away from Saturn. The rim of the immense impact basin of Odysseus (450 kilometers or 280 miles across) lies on the eastern limb, at the 2 o'clock position, making the limb there appear flatter than elsewhere. Other large craters seen here are Penelope (left of center) and Melanthius (below center). The region between Penelope and Odysseus has not previously been imaged at such high resolution before. The natural color view was created by compositing images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters. To create the false-color view, ultraviolet, green and infrared images were combined into a single picture that isolates and maps regional color differences. This "color map" was then superimposed over a clear-filter image that preserves the relative brightness across the body. The combination of color map and brightness image shows how colors vary across the surface of Tethys. The origin of the color differences is not yet understood, but may be caused by subtle differences in the surface composition or the sizes of grains making up the icy surface material. North on Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) is up. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 31, 2006 at a distance of approximately 414,000 kilometers (257,000 miles) from Tethys. Image scale is 2 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
February 6, 2007 |
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Cloud Lanes
| Description |
Cloud Lanes |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft captures the ripples, loops and storms that swirl in Saturn's east-west flowing cloud bands. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 728 nanometers. The view was obtained on Dec. 13, 2006 at a distance of approximately 775,000 kilometers (482,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 43 kilometers (27 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 29, 2007 |
|
The Inner Rings
| Description |
The Inner Rings |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft looks toward the innermost region of Saturn's rings, capturing (from right to left) the C and B rings. The dark, inner edge of the Cassini Division is just visible in the lower left corner. (The innermost D ring is too faint to be clearly seen here.) The image looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 50 degrees above the ringplane. Thus, from this perspective, the Sun's light makes particles visible as it scatters through the rings toward the camera. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 17, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 64 kilometers (40 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
February 1, 2007 |
|
Toward Morning
| Description |
Toward Morning |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft looks toward daybreak on Saturn through the delicate strands of the C ring. Some structure and contrast is visible in the clouds far below. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 18 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 862 nanometers. The view was acquired on Nov. 4, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 162 degrees. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 23, 2007 |
|
Titan: Larger and Larger Lak
…
| Description |
Titan: Larger and Larger Lakes |
| Full Description |
This radar image, obtained by Cassini's radar instrument during a near-polar flyby on Feb. 22, 2007, shows a big island smack in the middle of one of the larger lakes imaged on Saturn's moon Titan. This image offers further evidence that the largest lakes are at the highest latitudes. The island is about 90 kilometers (62 miles) by 150 kilometers (93 miles) across, about the size of Kodiak Island in Alaska or the Big Island of Hawaii. The island may actually be a peninsula connected by a bridge to a larger stretch of land. As you go farther down the image, several very small lakes begin to appear, which may be controlled by local topography. This image was taken in synthetic aperture mode at 700 meter (2,300 feet) resolution. North is toward the left. The image is centered at about 79 north degrees north and 310 degrees west. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. Credit: NASA/JPL |
| Date |
February 27, 2007 |
|
Ring World
| Description |
Ring World |
| Full Description |
Our robotic emissary, flying high above Saturn, captured this view of an alien copper-colored ring world. The overexposed planet has deliberately been removed to show the unlit rings alone, seen from an elevation of 60 degrees, the highest Cassini has yet attained. The view is a mosaic of 27 images -- nine separate sets of red, green and blue images -- taken over the course of about 45 minutes, as Cassini scanned across the entire main ring system. The planet's shadow carves a dark swath across the ring plane at the right. The overexposed planet has been removed. Moons visible in this image: Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across) at the 1 o'clock position, Pandora (84 kilometers, or 52 miles across) at the 5 o'clock position, Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) at the 10 o'clock position. Bright clumps of material in the narrow F ring moved in their orbits between each of the color exposures, creating a chromatic misalignment that provides some sense of the continuous motion in the ring system. Radially extending lens flare artifacts, which result from light being scattered within the camera optics, are present in the view. The images in this natural-color view were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 21, 2007, at a distance of approximately 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 90 kilometers (56 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 1, 2007 |
|
South on Saturn
| Description |
South on Saturn |
| Full Description |
From beneath the ringplane, the Cassini spacecraft takes stock of Saturn's southern skies and peeks through the rings and beyond their shadows at the northern latitudes. The image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of polarized infrared light. This type of infrared filter view allows Cassini's cameras to see through the planet's overlying haze and observe fine detail in its ever-moving cloud bands. The image was obtained on Feb. 3, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 121 kilometers (75 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 16, 2007 |
|
Helene and Mimas
| Description |
Helene and Mimas |
| Full Description |
Two moons of Saturn rendezvous in the Saturnian skies above the Cassini spacecraft. Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across) is seen here just before gliding in front of Helene (32 kilometers, or 20 miles across), which lays 192,000 kilometers (119,000 miles) in the distance beyond the larger moon. The limb of Mimas is flattened in the west, where the rim if the large crater Herschel lies. This view looks toward the lit side of the rings from about 3 degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 3, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Mimas and 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Helene. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel on Mimas and 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Helene. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 15, 2007 |
|
Titan (T25) Viewed by Cassin
…
| Description |
Titan (T25) Viewed by Cassini's Radar Feb. 22, 2007 |
| Full Description |
This image of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, obtained by Cassini's radar instrument during a near-polar flyby on Feb. 22, 2007, features dunes and lakes, one of which is larger than any lake on Earth and could be legitimately called a sea. First discovered by Cassini's radar in July 2006 (see Lakes on Titan), Titan's lakes are thought to consist of liquid methane and ethane. The image runs from southern latitudes, starting at 32 degrees south, 55 degrees west, where we see featureless terrain with bright streaks, heading north and slightly east, through dune fields interspersed with exposed bright mounds. In places, the dunes wrap around the bright mounds, which suggests the mounds are raised (see Titan Features and Interactions). In one case, the dunes wrap around an unusual rose-shaped structure, approximately 70 kilometers (40 miles) across. Near the spacecraft's closest approach (33 degrees north, 28 degrees west), where the swath is at its narrowest, the terrain is dark and mottled, with occasional bright outcrops and fine dunes. As we continue to head north, we see the first signs of the action of liquids -- fine channels and canyon-like structures. Later, depressions can be seen. These are similar to those seen in the lake region and are interpreted as volcanic calderas or drained lakes. As the swath continues, these become more plentiful, and some are partly filled with dark material thought to be liquid hydrocarbons, hence lakes. In places, the lakes reside in what appear to be nested, near-circular depressions, reminiscent of nested calderas. The final section of the swath, which is closest to the pole, contains by far the largest lakes observed by Cassini's radar to date. Part of the first of these was seen during a previous flyby (see Titan's Great Lakes?), and is fed by a long river -- over 200 kilometers (120 miles) in length, and hundreds of meters to over 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in width - running through what appears to be a flood plain. The lake's bright, jutting shoreline indicates that old, eroded landforms may have been flooded. The end of the next lake was also observed before (see Lakes and More lakes), appearing to be, in both form and scale, similar to Lake Powell, a flooded drainage system in Utah and Arizona. We can now see that this lake on Titan connects via a relatively narrow channel to a much larger (at least 45,000 square kilometers or 17,000 square miles) lake, containing a large (approximately 12,000 square kilometers or 4,600 square miles) island or peninsula (see Titan: Larger and Larger Lakes). The last part of the image passes close to the pole (86 degrees north, 290 degrees east), before heading east and slightly south. At the end of the swath, we see the largest lake observed yet -- at least 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles), which is greater in extent than one of the largest lakes on Earth, Lake Superior (82,000 square kilometers or 32,000 square miles), and covers a greater fraction of, Titan than the largest terrestrial inland sea, the Black Sea. The Black Sea covers 0.085 percent of the surface of the Earth, this newly observed body on Titan covers at least 0.12 percent of the surface of Titan. Because of its size, scientists are calling this a sea. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. *Credit:* NASA/JPL |
| Date |
March 13, 2007 |
|
Giant Lake on Titan
| Description |
Giant Lake on Titan |
| Full Description |
This view of Titan taken on Feb. 25, 2007, reveals a giant lake-like feature in Titan's North Polar Region. It is approximately 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) long and has a surface area slightly smaller than that of Earth's largest lake, the Caspian Sea. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . *Credit: *NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 13, 2007 |
|
Rings in Orbit
| Description |
Rings in Orbit |
| Full Description |
High above the streamers of cloud in Saturn's atmosphere, the planet's immense ring system begins with faint, thin rings populated with dust-sized ice particles. Here, features in the D ring are visible, beginning at about 67,000 kilometers (42,000 miles) from the planet's center. Stars trail across the background during this exposure, timed to capture the faint light from these D ring features. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 59 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 9, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 20, 2007 |
|
Exploring the Wetlands of Ti
…
| Description |
Exploring the Wetlands of Titan |
| Full Description |
Cassini peers through the murky orange haze of Titan to spy what are believed to be bodies of liquid hydrocarbons, two of them as large as seas on Earth, near the moon's north pole. This movie blends a near natural-color view and an infrared glimpse of Titan's surface obtained by the visual cameras, followed by a transition to imagery collected by the radar instrument aboard Cassini, for a dramatic reveal of the north pole of Saturn's largest moon. As the movie zooms in on the north pole, the most readily visible bodies are outlined in blue. The largest of these, on the left, is as big as the Caspian Sea on Earth, the next largest, on the right, is about the size of Lake Superior. When compared to the surface area of Titan however (which is six times smaller than Earth's), these bodies are equivalent in size to the Bay of Bengal and Timor Sea, respectively. Geographically speaking, they are more like seas. The movie continues with a gradual transition to a polar map of the radar imagery taken so far by Cassini of the north polar region. It is clear that one of the radar swaths has intersected a small upper bay of the largest sea, and has almost entirely imaged the second one. The extreme darkness of these regions in the radar data argues strongly for the presence of liquid hydrocarbons, such as methane and ethane, which remain liquid at Titan's frigid temperature of minus 180 degrees Celsius (minus 288 degrees Fahrenheit). See Titan (T25) Viewed by Cassini's Radar - Feb. 22, 2007. The movie continues with a pan across the pole and the radar imagery that has uncovered a multitude of much smaller lakes. Features of strikingly similar morphology to these dark northern seas and smaller lakes were first discovered in Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem images in June 2005, at Titan's south pole (see Land of Lakes?). The lake-like shoreline of the largest of these, called Ontario Lacus, its size (about the size of Lake Victoria), and its proximity to the south pole where the largest field of clouds yet seen on Titan had been observed, earned it the reputation as the best candidate for a body of liquid hydrocarbons on Titan up until that point, though the case for liquids was weak. When adjusted for the size of Titan, Ontario Lacus is equivalent in size to the Black Sea. Now, by inference, scientists are more confident that it, and the smaller features that dot the south pole, are also likely open bodies of liquid, and in aggregate make up a southern wetlands on Titan, similar to the one observed in the north polar movie. The images used to make this movie were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 25, 2007, at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Titan. The infrared images were taken with a special filter centered at 938 nanometers that provides the cameras' best view of Titan's surface features. This view was then composited with images taken at 619, 568 and 440 nanometers to, create a near natural color appearance. The radar data were acquired in synthetic aperture radar mode. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 15, 2007 |
|
Bent Spoke
| Description |
Bent Spoke |
| Full Description |
A bright spoke extends across the unilluminated side of Saturn's B ring about the same distance as that from London to Cairo. The background ring material displays some azimuthal (i.e., left to right) asymmetry. The radial (outward from Saturn) direction is up in this view. A noticeable kink in the spoke occurs very close to the radius where ring particles orbit the planet at the speed of Saturn's magnetic field. Such a connection is most intriguing to scientists studying these ghostly ring phenomena. If gravity alone were affecting the spoke material, there would be no kink and the entire spoke would be angled toward right, like the bottom portion. That it bends to the left above the kink indicates that some other force, possibly related to the magnetic field, is acting on the spoke material. The shape might also indicate that the spoke did not form in a radial orientation, thus challenging scientists' assumptions about these features. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 58 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 23, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 7, 2007 |
|
Rivers of Cloud
| Description |
Rivers of Cloud |
| Full Description |
Rippling with detail, the southern hemisphere of Saturn comes to life in this view from the Cassini spacecraft. Long, flowing streamers and bands of great contrast soften toward the pole, where a great hurricane-like storm resides. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 890 nanometers. The image was taken on Feb. 1, 2007 at a distance of approximately 945,000 kilometers (587,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 53 kilometers (33 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 14, 2007 |
|
Hello Again, Jupiter!
| Description |
Hello Again, Jupiter! |
| Full Description |
The brick red, white and brown cloud bands of Jupiter are seen here from Saturn orbit. The Cassini spacecraft's powerful imaging cameras were specially designed to photograph nearby bodies (cosmically speaking) in the Saturn system, but as this image demonstrates, the cameras are actually telescopes. Jupiter is imaged here from more than 11 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, or slightly farther than the average Earth-Saturn distance. As demonstrated by Pale Blue Orb, Earth is only about a pixel across when viewed from Saturn by Cassini. Cassini's parting glance at Jupiter, following the spacecraft's 2000 flyby and gravity assist, is Cassini's Farewell to Jupiter. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 8, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.8 billion kilometers (1.1 billion miles) from Jupiter and at a Sun-Jupiter-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 50 degrees. Scale in the original image was about 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) per pixel. The image was contrast enhanced and magnified by a factor of two and a half to enhance the visibility of cloud features on the planet. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 19, 2007 |
|
Titan Sea and Lake Superior
| Description |
Titan Sea and Lake Superior |
| Full Description |
This side-by-side image shows a Cassini radar image (on the left) of what is the largest body of liquid ever found on Titan's north pole, compared to Lake Superior (on the right). This close-up is part of a larger image (see Titan (T25) Viewed by Cassini's Radar - Feb. 22, 2007) and offers strong evidence for seas on Titan. These seas are most likely liquid methane and ethane. This feature on Titan is at least 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles), which is greater in extent than Lake Superior (82,000 square kilometers or 32,000 square miles), which is one of Earth's largest lakes. The feature covers a greater fraction of Titan than the largest terrestrial inland sea, the Black Sea. The Black Sea covers 0.085 percent of the surface of the Earth, this newly observed body on Titan covers at least 0.12 percent of the surface of Titan. Because of its size, scientists are calling it a sea. The image on the right is from the SeaWiFS project, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. *Credit:* NASA/JPL/GSFC |
| Date |
March 13, 2007 |
|
Classic Appeal
| Description |
Classic Appeal |
| Full Description |
Like black and white photos of earthly family and friends, monochrome images of Saturn can also capture their subject with crisp poignancy. This infrared view from high above Saturn's ringplane highlights the contrast in the cloud bands, the dimly glowing rings and their shadows on the gas giant planet. The overall effect is stirring. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 48 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of polarized infrared light. The view was obtained on Feb. 12, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 144 degrees. Image scale is 191 kilometers (119 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 5, 2007 |
|
Streamer Genesis
| Description |
Streamer Genesis |
| Full Description |
Prometheus draws a fresh streamer of material from the F ring as it passes the ring's interior edge. The streamer will continuously shear out as it orbits the planet, becoming more elongated and increasingly aligned with the F ring with time. A single large crater is the principle feature visible on Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) in this view. The moon is lit partly by bright sunlight and partly by reflected light from Saturn. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 57 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 11, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1.1 miles) from Prometheus and at a Sun-Prometheus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 130 degrees. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 4, 2007 |
|
Moons in the Night
| Description |
Moons in the Night |
| Full Description |
Sunlight makes visible the faint band called the E ring as two moons meet in the sky. Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across) and Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) appear close together in the sky in this image, but in reality, Tethys was more than 260,000 kilometers (162,000 miles) farther from the Cassini spacecraft -- greater than half the distance from Earth to the Moon. Enceladus is easy to identify by the brilliant plume of ice erupting from its south pole. Although this perspective views the night sides of both moons, the Sun is not the only source of illumination in the Saturn system. Tethys is at a fuller phase with respect to Saturn, and thus its "night side" is more fully lit than that of Enceladus. The view was acquired from a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 163 degrees, a viewing geometry in which the microscopic ice particles in its plume brighten substantially. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 6, 2006 at a distance of approximately 3.9 million kilometers (2.4 million miles) from Enceladus and 4.2 million kilometers (2.6 million miles) from Tethys. Image scale is 23 kilometers (14 miles) per pixel on Enceladus and 25 kilometers (16 miles) on Tethys. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 16, 2007 |
|
Rhea's Scars
| Description |
Rhea's Scars |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft examines the desolate, cratered crescent of Rhea, a surface so heavily bombarded over the eons that new craters are virtually guaranteed to form on top of older ones. The large Tirawa impact basin is visible here. This view looks toward the leading hemisphere on Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across). North is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 26, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 106 degrees. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 3, 2007 |
|
Shadowcaster
| Description |
Cassini takes in a sweeping view of Saturn's south polar region as the planet's shadow masks the rings and bright, icy Mimas looks on from left. |
| Full Description |
Cassini takes in a sweeping view of Saturn's south polar region as the planet's shadow masks the rings and bright, icy Mimas looks on from left. This view looks toward the lit side of the rings from about 28 degrees below the ring plane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this color view. The view was acquired with the wide-angle camera on Feb. 20, 2007, at a distance of approximately 1 million kilometers (600,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 58 kilometers (36 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 27, 2007 |
|
Casting a Shadow
| Description |
Casting a Shadow |
| Full Description |
Blazing like an icy torch, the plume of Enceladus shines in scattered sunlight as the moon casts a shadow onto Saturn's E ring. Some of the tiny ice particles erupted from the moon's south polar region go into Saturn orbit, forming the doughnut-shaped ring, onto which the moon's shadow is cast in this view. The shadow of Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across) stretches away to the upper left at around the 10 o'clock position. The Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle is 164 degrees here, with the Sun being located toward the lower right. This means that Enceladus' shadow extends toward the Cassini spacecraft -- through part of the E ring. Some of the bright dots in this heavily processed view are background stars. Others are due to cosmic ray hits on the camera detector. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 11, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2.2 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Enceladus. Image scale is 13 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 18, 2007 |
|
Shifting Strands
| Description |
Shifting Strands |
| Full Description |
The shepherd moon Prometheus is lit partly by reflected light from Saturn as it lurks near the heavily perturbed F ring. The left side of Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) is overexposed by the blinding Sun, but hints of craters can be seen on the Saturn-lit side. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 52 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 16, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Prometheus. Image scale is 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 12, 2007 |
|
Taking the Plunge
| Description |
Taking the Plunge |
| Full Description |
Pan prepares to be engulfed by the darkness of Saturn's shadow, visible here as it stretches across the rings. When the Cassini spacecraft took a follow-up image of this same location about 50 seconds later, Pan (26 kilometers, or 16 miles across) had vanished into darkness. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 44 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 14, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Pan. Image scale is 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 17, 2007 |
|
The Perturber
| Description |
The Perturber |
| Full Description |
The oblong form of Prometheus glides by, trailing behind it wiggles in Saturn's ribbon-like F ring. Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) causes a great deal of perturbation to the F ring, including kinks, knots and gores in the shape of the ring structure. By studying the moon and its interactions with the F ring scientists are learning a great deal about how ring structures form and evolve. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 27 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 24, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Prometheus. Image scale is 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 10, 2007 |
|
Circumpolar Bands
| Description |
The rapidly rotating clouds above Titan's northernmost latitudes stretch into streaks that circumscribe the pole. |
| Full Description |
The rapidly rotating clouds above Titan's northernmost latitudes stretch into streaks that circumscribe the pole. The ultraviolet spectral filter used to take this image allows the Cassini spacecraft to view the moon's stratosphere. The view was taken from about 50 degrees above Titan's equatorial plane. Titan is 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) across. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of polarized ultraviolet light. The view was captured on Feb. 25, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 63 degrees. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 30, 2007 |
|
Crossing Saturn
| Description |
Crossing Saturn |
| Full Description |
Rhea brushes the stormy face of Saturn, an airless ice orb against the feathery bands of a gas giant. Saturn's unilluminated rings are seen at upper right. Rhea is the second largest of Saturn's moons at 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) across. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 3 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in wavelengths of polarized infrared light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Feb. 4, 2007. Cassini acquired the view at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Saturn and 679,000 kilometers (422,000 miles) from Rhea. Image scale is 137 kilometers (85 miles) per pixel on Saturn and about 80 kilometers (50 miles) per pixel on Rhea. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 13, 2007 |
|
Dione's Southern Face
| Description |
Dione's Southern Face |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft takes in the crater-strewn surface near Dione's south pole in this natural color view. Long fractures slice across the surface here, as on other parts of the moon. Previous Cassini imaging investigations have shown that the canyons seen here do not appear to have the bright, presumably youthful, walls seen in fractures nearer the equator (see Older Southern Fractures?). Dione is 1,126 kilometers (700 miles) across. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 8, 2007 at a distance of approximately 268,000 kilometers (166,000 miles) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 92 degrees. Image scale is 2 kilometers (5,249 feet) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
May 11, 2007 |
|
In Saturn's Grasp
| Description |
In Saturn's Grasp |
| Full Description |
Held in gravity's embrace, Saturn's darkened, icy rings encircle the clouded gas giant. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 29 degrees above the ringplane. The rings are made visible on this side (their "dark" side) by sunlight that scatters though them and by occulting the planet and background stars. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on March 29, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 113 kilometers (70 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
May 2, 2007 |
|
Looking Up
| Description |
Looking Up |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft gazes upward at the face of giant Saturn, seeing beyond the equator to where ring shadows fall across the bluish northern latitudes. This extreme southern view looks northward from about 58 degrees below the ringplane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Feb. 1, 2007 at a distance of approximately 940,000 kilometers (584,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 106 kilometers (66 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 20, 2007 |
|
Seeing Farther North
| Description |
Seeing Farther North |
| Full Description |
High northern terrain on Titan is made visible by some image processing sleight of hand. The view is the product of a ratio between Titan images taken using two different spectral filters. This process improves the visibility of surface features on Titan by removing the effect of shading from differing lighting angles. Features nearest the terminator (the line between night and day) receive the greatest improvement in terms of visibility. In this particular frame, the process also makes visible features beyond the terminator. These features are illuminated by scattered light in the atmosphere, as during twilight on Earth. By this processing technique, surface features near the north pole can be viewed a full year-and-a-half before they are illuminated directly by the Sun. In most processed views of Titan, this ratio procedure produces images that show only the surface, and indeed, most of the features visible here are on the ground. However, the high altitude haze layers in Titan's north polar region are darker in the shorter wavelength image used to create this special product. This difference in brightness results in the bright latitudinal band seen here. The banding in the north polar haze layers can be seen in Circumpolar Bands. In the high north lie the large, dark features thought to be seas of liquid methane or ethane. Along the bottom of the image are Titan's equatorial dark regions, also thought to be seas -- but instead of liquid, they are seas of longitudinal dunes. The view is toward terrain centered at 34 degrees north latitude on Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across). The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 29, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Titan. Image scale is 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. Due to scattering of light by Titan's hazy atmosphere, the sizes of surface features that can be resolved are a few times larger than the actual pixel scale. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
May 1, 2007 |
|
My Blue Heaven
| Description |
My Blue Heaven |
| Full Description |
In Saturn's bluish north, day ends for the dreamy white clouds that stretch here into twilight. This natural color scene shows middle latitudes in Saturn's north at excellent resolution, and with little detectable blur due to spacecraft motion. North on Saturn is up and rotated 22 degrees to the right. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this color view. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 1, 2007 at a distance of approximately 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 86 degrees. Image scale is about 12 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
May 3, 2007 |
|
Powering Saturn's Jets (with
…
| Description |
Powering Saturn's Jets (without labels) |
| Full Description |
+ View labeled version of the image Using images like the one presented here, Cassini imaging scientists have made a major finding about the mechanism powering the general circulation of Saturn. The image shows small-scale, sheared-out cloud features associated with turbulent eddies in the vicinity of one of Saturn's eastward flowing jet streams, or "jets." The jet itself, located at 27.5 degrees south latitude, is indicated by the large horizontal arrow. Winds in this jet have blown continuously at speeds close to 320 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour) for as long as scientists have observed Saturn. By tracking the movements of these cloud features in successive images separated by about 10 hours (about one Saturn rotation), Cassini scientists have confirmed that the eddies on either side of the jet give up their energy and momentum to help keep the winds in the jet blowing. The tilted arrows indicate the direction in which the eddies move the energy and momentum that power the jet. The winds that accomplish this are so strong that they combine to stretch out the eddies into bright, tilted streaks that are visible here, parallel to the arrows. The analysis of Cassini images covering most of Saturn's southern hemisphere suggests that similar processes occurring all over Saturn explain the remarkable decades-long stability of its alternating pattern of eastward and westward jets. The same process also occurs on Jupiter, and on Earth in the storm track along the east coast of the United States. Prior to this discovery, it was thought that the jets on Saturn and Jupiter were powered by an entirely different process, analogous to the tropical circulation on Earth. But now it appears that a comparison to the atmospheric motions in the Earth's mid-latitudes is more appropriate. The eddies seen in this image also create circulation patterns of upward and downward motion (in altitude) at different latitudes that help explain the general banded structure of global cloud patterns on the Jovian planets. A labeled version of the image is presented here as well. The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 750 nanometers. The view was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 3.4 million kilometers (2.1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 20 kilometers (12 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
May 8, 2007 |
|
Suncatcher
| Description |
Suncatcher |
| Full Description |
The rings of Saturn glow softly as sunlight from below wends its way through. Some of the Sun's light bounces off the rings' opposite side and can be seen illuminating Saturn's night side southern hemisphere. Such a view is only possible from the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 33 degrees above the ringplane. Shadows of the innermost rings are cast upon the planet at upper left. The edge of Saturn's shadow cuts a straight line across the rings near upper right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on March 30, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 117 kilometers (73 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 30, 2007 |
|
Dusky Saturn
| Description |
Dusky Saturn |
| Full Description |
Brooding Saturn seems to be missing its rings, but their shadows on the planet betray their presence. The inner rings are in fact contained within this scene, but they are so tenuous as to be nearly invisible. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 52 degrees above the ringplane. Some motion is apparent in Saturn's clouds between the exposures used to create this color composite, as evidenced by the 'rainbow' effect seen here and there across the face of the planet. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 5, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 84 kilometers (52 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
May 9, 2007 |
|
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