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Jupiter's Moons
On Jan. 7, 1610, Galileo Gal
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01/08/10
| Description |
On Jan. 7, 1610, Galileo Galilei's improvements to the telescope enabled humanity to see Jupiter's four largest moons for the first time. Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto--the so-called Galilean satellites--were seen by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager on the New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby of Jupiter in late February 2007. The images have been scaled to represent the true relative sizes of the four moons and are arranged in their order from Jupiter. Io is notable for its active volcanism, which New Horizons studied extensively. On the other hand, Europa's smooth, icy surface likely conceals an ocean of liquid water. New Horizons obtained data on Europa's surface composition and imaged subtle surface features, and analysis of these data may provide new information about the ocean and the icy shell that covers it. New Horizons spied Ganymede from 2.2 million miles away. Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, has a dirty ice surface cut by fractures and peppered by impact craters. New Horizons' infrared observations may provide insight into the composition of the moon's surface and interior. Scientists are using the infrared spectra New Horizons gathered of Callisto's ancient, cratered surface to calibrate spectral analysis techniques that will help them to understand the surfaces of Pluto and its moon Charon when New Horizons passes them in 2015. Image Credit: NASA/JHU-APL/Southwest Research Institute |
| Date |
01/08/10 |
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Jupiter casts a baleful eye
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| Description |
Jupiter casts a baleful eye on wayward Ganymede in this frame, color-composited from narrow angle images taken on November 18 and high-pass filtered and contrast-enhanced to bring out details not readily seen otherwise. The smallest features in this image are 240 km across. Jupiter's `eye', the Great Red Spot, was captured just before disappearing over the eastern limb of the planet. The furrowed eyebrow above and to the left of the Spot is a turbulent wake region caused by westward flow deflected to the north and around the Red Spot. (An animation of ISS images from early October, beautifully illustrating this flow, was released on November 20 and can be viewed below.) Within the band south of the Red Spot are seen a trio of white ovals, small high pressure counter-clockwise rotating regions that are dynamically similar to the Red Spot. The dark filamentary features interspersed between the white ovals are probably cyclonic circulations, similar to those seen by Galileo, and, unlike the ovals, are rotating clockwise. Jupiter's Equatorial Zone stretching across the planet to the north of the Spot appears bright white, with gigantic plume clouds spreading out from the equator both to the northeast and to the southest. in a chevron pattern. This zone looks distinctly different than it did during the Voyager flyby 21 years ago when its color was predominantly brown, and only SW/NE-trending white plumes north of the equator were conspicous against the darker material beneath. The bluish gray regions near the equator, noted in earlier releases, are regions where the clouds have cleared and, except for partial obscuration by thin upper level hazes, we can see to great depth. The darker, brownish North Equatorial belt north of the Equatorial Zone is also quite turbulent. (See accompanying release below.) Ganymede is Jupiter's largest moon, about 50% larger than our own Moon and larger than the planet Mercury. Like the Moon and Mercury, Ganymede has no atmosphere, the visible details seen in this image are different geological terrains on the satellite's surface. Dark areas tend to be older and heavily cratered, the brighter locales are younger and more sparsely cratered. The latter are the famed grooved terrains first seen by Voyager and imaged at high resolution by Galileo. Cassini images of Ganymede and the other Galilean satellites taken near closest approach on December 30 will have resolutions of ~60 km/pixel, four times better than that seen here. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona # # # # # |
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Europa, Callisto and Jupiter
One moment in an ancient, or
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12/21/00
| Date |
12/21/00 |
| Description |
One moment in an ancient, orbital dance is caught in this color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 7, 2000, just as two of Jupiter's four major moons, Europa and Callisto, were nearly perfectly aligned with each other and the center of the planet. The distances are deceiving. Europa, seen against Jupiter, is 600,000 kilometers (370,000 miles) above the planet's cloud tops. Callisto, at lower left, is nearly three times that distance from the cloud tops. Europa is a bit smaller than Earth's Moon and has one of the brightest surfaces in the solar system. Callisto is 50 percent bigger -- roughly the size of Saturn's largest satellite, Titan -- and three times darker than Europa. Its brightness had to be enhanced in this picture, relative Europa's and Jupiter's, in order for Callisto to be seen in this image. Europa and Callisto have had very different geologic histories but share some surprising similarities, such as surfaces rich in ice. Callisto has apparently not undergone major internal compositional stratification, but Europa's interior has differentiated into a rocky core and an outer layer of nearly pure ice. Callisto's ancient surface is completely covered by large impact craters: The brightest features seen on Callisto in this image were discovered by the Voyager spacecraft in 1979 to be bright craters, like those on our Moon. In contrast, Europa's young surface is covered by a wild tapestry of ridges, chaotic terrain and only a handful of large craters. Recent data from the magnetometer carried by the Galileo spacecraft, which has been in orbit around Jupiter since 1995, indicate the presence of conducting fluid, most likely salty water, inside both Callisto and Europa. Scientists are eager to discover whether the surface of Saturn's Titan resembles that of Callisto or Europa, or whether it is entirely different, when Cassini finally reaches its destination in 2004. Cassini 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 Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona ##### |
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Seeing the Invisible: Jupite
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This image taken on Dec. 28,
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12/30/00
| Date |
12/30/00 |
| Description |
This image taken on Dec. 28, 2000, by the ion and neutral camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft makes the huge magnetosphere surrounding Jupiter visible in a way no instrument on any previous spacecraft has been able to do. The magnetosphere is a bubble of charged particles trapped within the magnetic environment of the planet. This image shows it stretching across about 3 million kilometers (about 1.8 million miles) of space, or more than 12 times the diameter of Jupiter. Some of the fast-moving ions within the magnetosphere pick up electrons to become neutral atoms, and once they become neutral, they can escape Jupiter's magnetic field, flying out from the magnetosphere at speeds of thousands of kilometers or miles per second. Cassini's instrument for imaging the magnetosphere builds an image from these atoms reaching the spacecraft, analagous to the way a normal camera builds an image from photons. Some details of structure are visible within the magnetosphere, including the most intense emission region about 300,000 kilometers (about 200,000 miles) out from Jupiter, where material spewed from the volcanoes of Jupiter's moon Io form a torus, or doughnut-shaped ring, around the planet. Additional information about Cassini is available online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini . Cassini is a cooperative mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages Cassini for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. ##### Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. |
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This is a composite of two i
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1/17/97
| Date |
1/17/97 |
| Description |
This is a composite of two images of Jupiter's icy moon Europa obtained from a range of 2119 miles (3410 kilometers) by the Galileo spacecraft during its fourth orbit around Jupiter and its first close pass of Europa. The mosaic spans 11 miles by 30 miles (17 km by 49 km) and shows features as small as 230 feet (70 meters) across. This mosaic is the first very high resolution image data obtained of Europa, and has a resolution more than 50 times better than the best Voyager coverage and 500 times better than Voyager coverage in this area. The mosaic shows the surface of Europa to be structurally complex. The sun illuminates the scene from the right, revealing complex overlapping ridges and fractures in the upper and lower portions of the mosaic, and rugged, more chaotic terrain in the center. Lateral faulting is revealed where ridges show offsets along their lengths (upper left of the picture). Missing ridge segments indicate obliteration of pre-existing materials and emplacement of new terrain (center of the mosaic). Only a small number of impact craters can be seen, indicating the surface is not geologically ancient. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo ##### |
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Sulfuric Acid on Europa
Frozen sulfuric acid on Jupi
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9/1/99
| Date |
9/1/99 |
| Description |
Frozen sulfuric acid on Jupiter's moon Europa is depicted in this image produced from data gathered by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. The brightest areas, where the yellow is most intense, represent regions of high frozen sulfuric acid concentration. Sulfuric acid is found in battery acid and in Earth's acid rain. This image is based on data gathered by Galileo's near infrared mapping spectrometer. Europa's leading hemisphere is toward the bottom right, and there are enhanced concentrations of sulfuric acid in the trailing side of Europa (the upper left side of the image). This is the face of Europa that is struck by sulfur ions coming from Jupiter's innermost moon, Io. The long, narrow features that crisscross Europa also show sulfuric acid that may be from sulfurous material extruded in cracks. Galileo, launched in 1989, has been orbiting Jupiter and its moons since December 1995. JPL manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. ##### |
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Eyeing Ganymede
Jupiter casts a baleful eye
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12/5/00
| Date |
12/5/00 |
| Description |
Jupiter casts a baleful eye toward the moon Ganymede in this enhanced-contrast image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Jupiter's `eye', the Great Red Spot, was captured just before disappearing around the eastern edge of the planet. The furrowed eyebrow above and to the left of the spot is a turbulent wake region caused by westward flow that has been deflected to the north and around the Red Spot. The smallest features visible are about 240 kilometers (150 miles) across. Within the band south of the Red Spot are a trio of white ovals, high pressure counterclockwise-rotating regions that are dynamically similar to the Red Spot. The dark filamentary features interspersed between white ovals are probably cyclonic circulations and, unlike the ovals, are rotating clockwise. Jupiter's equatorial zone stretching across the planet north of the Spot appears bright white, with gigantic plume clouds spreading out from the equator both to the northeast and to the southeast in a chevron pattern. This zone looks distinctly different than it did during the Voyager flyby 21 years ago. Then, its color was predominantly brown and the only white plumes conspicuous against the darker material beneath them were oriented southwest-to-northeast. Ganymede is Jupiter's largest moon, about 50 percent larger than our own Moon and larger than the planet Mercury. The visible details in this image are different geological terrains. Dark areas tend to be older and heavily cratered, brighter areas are younger and less cratered. Cassini images of Ganymede and Jupiter's other large moons taken near closest approach on Dec. 30 will have resolutions about four times better than that seen here. This image is a color composite of ones taken with different filters by Cassini's narrow-angle camera on Nov. 18, 2000, processed to enhance contrast. Cassini 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 Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona # # # # # |
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Jupiter's Main Ring and Halo
The top and bottom panels sh
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9/15/98
| Date |
9/15/98 |
| Description |
The top and bottom panels show a mosaic of images of Jupiter's rings taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Jupiter is to the right of this mosaic, and different brightness scales accent different parts of the ring system. Jupiter's ring system has three parts -- a flat main ring, a halo inside the main ring shaped like a double-convex lens, and the gossamer ring outside the main ring. In the top view, a faint mist of particles is seen above and below the main rings. This vertically extended "halo" is unusual in planetary rings, and is caused by electromagnetic forces pushing the smallest grains, which carry electric charges, out of the ring plane. Jupiter's main ring is a thin sheet of material encircling the planet. The near and far arms of this ring extend horizontally across the mosaic, joining together at the ring's ansa, the portion visible on the sides of Jupiter, on the figure's far left side. In the bottom view, some radial structure is visible across the ring's ansa. The diffuse innermost boundary begins at approximately 122,500 kilometers (about 76,100 miles). The main ring's outer radius is at about 128,940 kilometers (80,120 miles), very close to the orbit of the Jovian moon Adrastea (128,980 kilometers or 80,140 miles). The brightness of the main ring drops markedly at about 127,850 kilometers (79,440 miles), very near the orbit of another moon, Metis, at 127,978 kilometers (79,521 miles). Jupiter's four small satellites-Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea and Thebe, affect the structure of the huge planet's tenuous rings. These images were taken through the clear filter of Galileo's onboard solid state imaging camera system on November 9, 1996. The resolution is approximately 24 kilometers (14 miles) per picture element along Jupiter's rings. Because the spacecraft was only about 0.5 degrees above the ring plane, the image is highly foreshortened vertically. The images were obtained when Galileo was in Jupiter's shadow, peering back toward the Sun, when the ring was approximately 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) away. The view of Earth's moon in the explanatory graphics was created from images returned by the Clementine lunar orbiter, launched in 1994 by NASA and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.) JPL manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The images are posted on the Internet at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/ and at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo . Background information and educational context for the images can be found at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo . ##### 9/9/98 JP |
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GLL/EM15
This mosaic picture of the M
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12/22/92
| Date |
12/22/92 |
| Description |
This mosaic picture of the Moon was compiled from 18 images taken with a green filter by Galileo's imaging system during the spacecraft's flyby on December 7, 1992, some 11 hours before its Earth flyby at 1509 UTC (7:09 a.m. Pacific Standard Time) December 8. The north polar region is near the top part of the mosaic, which also shows Mare Imbrium, the dark area on the left, Mare Serenitatis at center, and Mare Crisium, the circular dark area to the right. Bright crater rim and ray deposits are from Copernicus, an impact crater 96 kilometers (60 miles) in diameter. Computer processing has exaggerated the brightness of poorly illuminated features near the day/night terminator in the polar regions, giving a false impression of high reflectivity there. The digital image processing was done by DLR the German aerospace research establishment near Munich, an international collaborator in the Galileo mission. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ##### |
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Jupiter's Main and Gossamer
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The schematic structures of
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9/15/98
| Date |
9/15/98 |
| Description |
The schematic structures of Jupiter's main and gossamer rings are depicted here. Scientists studying data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft have found that the ring system is made up of impact debris created when meteoroids, which are fragments of comets and asteroids, slam into Jupiter's four smallest satellites. The top panel shows that the main ring (red) is formed mostly from meteoroid impact debris kicked up from the innermost moons, Metis (m) and Adrastea (a). Since both satellites orbit in paths not inclined to Jupiter's equator, the main ring appears as a narrow line. The middle panel shows the additional effect of dust ejected from the satellite Amalthea (A), responsible for producing one of the two moon components of the gossamer ring. Amalthea's orbit is inclined to Jupiter's equatorial plane, and at different times the satellite's vertical position can range anywhere between the two extreme limits shown. Dust ejected from Amalthea (orange) produces a ring whose thickness equals Amalthea's vertical projections beyond Jupiter's equatorial plane. The lower panel shows the additional effect of dust ejected from Thebe (T), which makes up the second component (shown in green) of the gossamer ring. Again, the two positions shown represent the maximum projections of Thebe from Jupiter's equatorial plane. This component of the gossamer ring is thicker than the component due to Amalthea's dust because Thebe's orbit is more inclined than that of Amalthea. The Jupiter image was created from a map based on data obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The images are posted on the Internet at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/ and at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo . Background information and educational context for the images can be found at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo . ##### 9/9/98 JP |
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GLL/EM16
This view looking down on th
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| Description |
This view looking down on the north pole of the Moon was assembled from 18 images taken with a green filter by Galileo's imaging system as the spacecraft flew by the Moon on December 7, 1992. The part of the moon visible from Earth is toward the left and includes the dark, lava-filled Imbrium basin, upper left, Mare Serenitatis, middle left, Mare Tranquillitatis, lower left, and Crisium, the dark circular feature toward the bottom of the mosaic. Also visible in this view are the dark lava plains of the Marginis and Smythii basins, lower right. The Humboldtianum Basin, a 650-kilometer (400-mile) impact structure partly filled with dark volcanic deposits, is visible in the middle of the image. The Moon's north pole is located just inside the shadow zone about a third of the way from the top left of the lighted region. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ##### |
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GLL/EM17
This false-color mosaic was
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12/22/92
| Date |
12/22/92 |
| Description |
This false-color mosaic was constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by Galileo's imaging system as the spacecraft flew over the northern regions of the Moon on December 7, 1992. The part of the Moon vlsible from Earth is on the left side in this view. The color mosaic shows compositional variations in parts of the Moon's northern hemisphere. Bright pinkish areas are highlands materials, such as those surrounding the oval lava-filled Crisium impact basin toward the bottom of the picture. B1ue to orange shades indicate volcanic lava flows. To the left of Crisium, the dark blue Mare Tranquillitatis is richer in titanium than the green and orange maria above it. Thin mineral-rich soils associated with relatively recent impacts are represented by light blue colors, the youngest craters have prominent blue rays extending from them. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ##### |
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GALILEO
This image is the most detai
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6/22/94
| Date |
6/22/94 |
| Description |
This image is the most detailed picture of the recently discovered natural satellite of asteroid 243 Ida taken by the Galileo Solid-State Imaging camera during its encounter with the asteroid on August 28, 1993. Shuttered through the camera's broadband clear filter as part of a 30-frame mosaic designed to image the asteroid itself, this frame fortuitously captured the previously unknown moon at a range of about 3,900 kilometers (2,400 miles), just over 4 minutes before the spacecraft's closest approach to Ida. Each picture element spans about 39 meters (125 feet) on the surface of the moon. More than a dozen craters larger than 80 meters (250 feet) in diameter are clearly evident, indicating that the moon has suffered numerous collisions from smaller Solar System debris during its history. The larger crater on the terminator is about 300 meters (1,000 feet) across. The satellite is approximately egg-shaped, measuring about 1.2 x 1.4 x 1.6 kilometers (0.75 x 0.87 x 1 mile). At the time this image was shuttered, Ida was about 90 kilometers (56 miles) away from the moon, outside this frame to the left and slightly below center. This image was relayed to Earth from Galileo on June 8, 1994. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ##### |
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Jupiter small satellite mont
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A montage of images of the s
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4/24/00
| Date |
4/24/00 |
| Description |
A montage of images of the small inner moons of Jupiter from the camera onboard NASA's Galileo spacecraft shows the best views obtained of these moons during Galileo's 11th orbit around the giant planet in November 1997. At that point, Galileo was completing its first two years in Jupiter orbit -- known as the Galileo "prime mission" -- and was about to embark on a successful two-year extension, called the Galileo Europa Mission. The top two images show the moon Thebe. Thebe rotated by approximately 50 degrees between the time these two images were taken, so that the same prominent impact crater is seen in both views, this crater, which has been given the provisional name Zethus, is near the point on Thebe that faces permanently away from Jupiter. The next two images show the moon Amalthea, they were taken with the Sun directly behind the observer, an alignment that emphasizes patterns of intrinsically bright or dark surface material. The third image from the top is a view of Amalthea's leading side, the side of the moon that "leads" as Amalthea moves in its orbit around Jupiter. This image looks "noisy" because it was obtained serendipitously during an observation of the Jovian satellite Io (Amalthea and Io shared the same camera frame but the image was exposed for bright Io rather than for the much darker Amalthea). The fourth image from the top emphasizes prominent "spots" of relatively bright material that are located near the point on Amalthea that faces permanently away from Jupiter. The bottom image is a view of the tiny moon Metis. In all the images, north is approximately up, and the moons are shown in their correct relative sizes. The images are, from top to bottom: Thebe taken on November 7, 1997 at a range of 504,000 kilometers (about 313,000 miles), Thebe on November 7, 1997 at a range of 548,000 kilometers (about 340,000 miles), Amalthea on November 6, 1997 at a range of about 650,000 kilometers (about 404,000 miles), Amalthea on November 7, 1997 at a range of 475,000 kilometers (about 295,000 miles), Metis on November 7, 1997 at a range of 637,000 kilometers (about 396,000 miles). # # # # # |
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Galileo and Cassini Image: T
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Two Giant Plumes on Io ,Two
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3/29/01
| Date |
3/29/01 |
| Description |
Two Giant Plumes on Io ,Two tall volcanic plumes and the rings of red material they have deposited onto surrounding surface areas appear in images taken of Jupiter's moon Io by NASA's Galileo and Cassini spacecraft in late December 2000 and early January 2001. One plume, from the volcano Pele, shoots upward nearly 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the surface near Io's equator. The plume has been active for at least four years and, until now, had been far larger than any other plume seen on Io. The images also show a second plume about the same size, closer to Io's north pole. This plume had never been seen before. It is associated with a fresh eruption from the Tvashtar Catena volcanic area. The observations were made during joint studies of the Jupiter system while Cassini was passing Jupiter on its way to Saturn. Galileo passed closer to Io for higher-resolution images, and Cassini acquired images at ultraviolet wavelengths, better for detecting active volcanic plumes. The Cassini ultraviolet images, upper right, reveal two gigantic, actively erupting plumes of gas and dust. Near the equator, just the top of Pele's plume is visible where it projects into sunlight. None of it would be illuminated if it were less than 240 kilometers (150 miles) high. These images indicate a total height for Pele of 390 kilometers (242 miles). The Cassini image at far right shows a bright spot over Pele's vent. Although the Pele hot spot has a high temperature, silicate lava cannot be hot enough to explain a bright spot in the ultraviolet, so the origin of this bright spot is a mystery, but it may indicate that Pele was unusually active when the picture was taken. Also visible is a plume near Io's north pole. Although 15 active plumes over Io's equatorial regions have been detected in hundreds of images from NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft, this is the first image ever acquired of an active plume over a polar region of Io. The plume projects about 150 kilometers (about 90 miles) over the limb, the edge of the globe. If it were erupting from a point on the limb, it would be only slightly larger than a typical Ionian plume, but the image does not reveal whether the source is actually at the limb or beyond it, out of view. A distinctive feature in Galileo images since 1997 has been a giant red ring of Pele plume deposits about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) in diameter. The Pele ring is seen again in one of the new Galileo images, lower left. When the new Galileo images were returned this month, scientists were astonished to see a second giant red ring on Io, centered around Tvashtar Catena at 63 degrees north latitude. (To see a comparison from before the ring was deposited, see images PIA-01604 or PIA-02309.) Tvashtar was the site of an active curtain of high-temperature silicate lava imaged by Galileo in November 1999 and February 2000 (image PIA- 02584). The new ring shows that Tvashtar must be the vent for the north polar plume imaged by Cassini from the other side of Io. This means the plume is actually about 385 kilometers (239 miles) high, just like Pele. The uncertainty in estimating the height is about 30 kilometers (19 miles), so the plume could be anywhere from 355 to 415 kilometers (221 to 259 miles) high. If this new plume deposit is just one millimeter (four one- hundredths of an inch) thick, then the eruption produced more ash than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington. NASA recently approved a third extension of the Galileo mission, including a pass over Io's north pole in August 2001. The spacecraft's trajectory will pass directly over Tvashtar at an altitude of 200 kilometers (124 miles). Will Galileo fly through an active plume? That depends on whether this eruption is long- lived like Pele or brief, and it also depends on how high the plume is next August. Two Pele-sized plumes are inferred to have erupted in 1979 during the four months between Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flybys, as indicated by new Pele-sized rings in Voyager 2 images. Those eruptions, both from high-latitude locations, were shorter-lived than Pele, but their actual durations are unknown. In May, Galileo will get another, more distant look at Tvashtar. It has been said that Io is the heartbeat of the jovian magnetosphere. The two giant plumes evidenced in these images may have had significant effects on the types, density and distribution of neutral and charged particles in the Jupiter system during the joint observations of the system by Galileo and Cassini from November 2000 to March 2001. These Cassini images were acquired on Jan. 2, 2001, except for the frame at the far right, which was acquired a day earlier. The Galileo images were acquired on Dec. 30 and 31, 2000. Cassini was about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) from Io, 10 times farther than Galileo. More information about the Cassini and Galileo joint observations of the Jupiter system is available online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby . Cassini 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 Galileo and Cassini missions for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. |
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Galileo at Jupiter
This artist's rendering show
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7/11/95
| Date |
7/11/95 |
| Description |
This artist's rendering shows the Galileo orbiter arriving at Jupiter on Dec. 7, 1995. A few hours before arrival, the orbiter will have flown within about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) of Jupiter's moon lo, shown as the crescent to the left of the spacecraft. The sun is visible between Io and the spacecraft, near the spacecraft's long magnetometer. Jupiter is to the right. A faint white streak above the planet's clouds shows the atmospheric probe beginning to decelerate before it deploys a parachute for its scientific mission to collect data as it descends into the atmosphere and relay that data to the orbiter. About an hour after the probe's mission is over, the orbiter will brake with its rocket engine to go into orbit around Jupiter for a two-year, 11-orbit study of Jupiter, its satellites and its magnetosphere. The Galileo mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Galileo probe is managed by NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field. Calif. |
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Io Above Clouds on New Year'
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The moon Io floats above the
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1/23/01
| Date |
1/23/01 |
| Description |
The moon Io floats above the cloudtops of Jupiter in this image captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on the dawn of the new millennium, Jan. 1, 2001, two days after Cassini's closest approach to Jupiter. The image is deceiving: There is room for two and a half Jupiters between Io and Jupiter's clouds. Io is the size of our Moon. Cassini 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 Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona # # # # # |
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Jupiter in color, by Cassini
This color image of Jupiter
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10/9/00
| Date |
10/9/00 |
| Description |
This color image of Jupiter was taken by the camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft when it was 81.3 million kilometers (50.5 million miles) from the planet. It is composed of images taken in the blue, green, and red regions of the spectrum and is therefore close to the true color of Jupiter that one would see through an Earth-based telescope. The image is remarkably similar to images taken by NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft more than 21 years ago, illustrating the stability of Jupiter's weather patterns. The parallel dark and bright bands and many other large-scale features are quasi- permanent structures that survive despite the intense small-scale activity ongoing in the atmosphere. The longevity of the large- scale features is an intrinsic property of the atmospheric flows on a gaseous planet such as Jupiter, with no solid surface. Smaller features, such as those in the dark bands north and south of the equator, are observed to form and disappear in a few days. Everything visible on the planet is a cloud. Unlike Earth, where only water condenses to form clouds, Jupiter has several cloud-forming substances in its atmosphere. The updrafts and downdrafts bring different mixtures of these substances up from below, leading to clouds of different colors. The bluish features just north of the equator are regions of reduced cloud cover, similar to the place where the Galileo atmospheric probe entered in 1995. They are called "hot spots" because the reduced cloud cover allows heat to escape from warmer, deeper levels in the atmosphere. Jupiter's moon Europa is seen at the right, casting a shadow on the planet. Scientists believe Europa holds promise of a liquid ocean beneath its surface. Cassini 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, Calif., manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
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Circumbinary Disk
| Title |
Circumbinary Disk |
| Description |
This artist concept shows a debris disk that has been observed around an unusual class of interacting binary stars. The type of cataclysmic variable system being studied consists of a highly magnetic white dwarf star (a "dead" remnant star formed from the core of a star like our Sun when it exhausts the available fuel to support nuclear fusion) and a very low-mass, cool object similar to a brown dwarf. The two objects orbit so closely -- about the distance from Earth to the Moon -- that they make a complete revolution about each other in only 80-90 minutes. The white dwarf is Earth-sized but weighs about 60 percent of the mass of the Sun, while the companion star is Jupiter-sized but has about 40-50 times the mass of Jupiter. |
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Exotic World Blisters Under
…
| Title |
Exotic World Blisters Under the Sun |
| Description |
This artist's concept shows a Jupiter-like planet soaking up the scorching rays of its nearby "sun." NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope used its heat-seeking infrared eyes to figure out that a gas-giant planet like the one depicted here is two-faced, with one side perpetually in the cold dark, and the other forever blistering under the heat of its star. The illustration portrays how the planet would appear to infrared eyes, showing temperature variations across its surface. The planet, called Upsilon Andromedae b, was first discovered in 1996 around the star Upsilon Andromedae, located 40 light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. This star also has two other planets orbiting farther out. Upsilon Andromedae b is what's known as a "hot-Jupiter" planet, because it is made of gas like our Jovian giant, and it is hot, due to its tight, 4.6-day-long jaunt around its star. The toasty planet orbits at one-sixth the distance of Mercury from our own sun. It travels in a plane that is seen neither edge- nor face-on from our solar system, but somewhere in between. Scientists do not know how fast Upsilon Andromedae b is spinning on its axis, but they believe that it is tidally locked to its star, just as our locked moon forever hides its "dark side" from Earth's view. Spitzer observed Upsilon Andromedae b at five points during the planet's trip around its star. The planet's light levels went up or down, as detected by Spitzer, depending on whether the planet's sunlit or dark side was pointed toward Earth. These data indicate that the temperature difference between the two hemispheres of the planet is about 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,550 degrees Fahrenheit). According to astronomers, this means that the side of the planet that faces the star is always as hot as lava, while the other side could potentially be as cold as ice. Specifically, the hot side of the planet ranges from about 1,400 to 1,650 degrees Celsius (2,550 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit), and the cold side from about minus 20 to 230 degrees Celsius (minus 4 to 450 degrees Fahrenheit). How can one side always be hot? The atmosphere of the planet must be absorbing and reradiating light fast enough that any heated gas circulating around the planet is cooled off before it reaches the dark side. |
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First Map of Alien World
| Title |
First Map of Alien World |
| Description |
This is the first-ever map of the surface of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system. The map, which shows temperature variations across the cloudy tops of a gas giant called HD 189733b, is made up of infrared data taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Hotter temperatures are represented in brighter colors. HD 189733b is what is known as a hot-Jupiter planet. These sizzling, gas planets practically hug their stars, orbiting at distances that are much closer than Mercury is to our sun. They whip around their stars quickly, for example, HD 189733b completes one orbit in just 2.2 days. Hot Jupiters are also thought to be tidally locked to their stars, just as our moon is to Earth. This means that one side of a hot Jupiter always faces its star. As predicted, the map reveals that HD 189733b has a warm spot on its "sunlit" side, which is always pointed toward the star. But the map also shows that this spot is offset from the high-noon, or sun-facing, point by 30 degrees. According to scientists, ferocious winds traveling up to 6,000 miles per hour (nearly 9,700 kilometers per hour) are probably pushing the hot spot to the east. In addition to the warm spot, the map tells astronomers that temperatures on HD 189733b are fairly even all around. While the dark side is about 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit (650 degrees Celsius), the sunlit side is just a bit hotter at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (930 degrees Celsius). This mild temperature variation is more evidence for strong winds, since winds would help spread the heat from the hot, sunlit side over to the dark side. These data were collected by Spitzer's infrared array camera as the planet, a so-called transiting planet, passed in front of its star, then swung around and disappeared behind it (see animation). By observing the planet for half of its 2.2-day long orbit, Spitzer was able to measure the infrared light, or heat, coming from its entire surface. The infrared measurements, about a quarter of a million individual data points, were then assembled by scientists into pole-to-pole strips, and ultimately into the complete map shown here. |
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First Map of Alien World
| Title |
First Map of Alien World |
| Description |
This is the first-ever map of the surface of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system. The map, which shows temperature variations across the cloudy tops of a gas giant called HD 189733b, is made up of infrared data taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Hotter temperatures are represented in brighter colors. HD 189733b is what is known as a hot-Jupiter planet. These sizzling, gas planets practically hug their stars, orbiting at distances that are much closer than Mercury is to our sun. They whip around their stars quickly, for example, HD 189733b completes one orbit in just 2.2 days. Hot Jupiters are also thought to be tidally locked to their stars, just as our moon is to Earth. This means that one side of a hot Jupiter always faces its star. As predicted, the map reveals that HD 189733b has a warm spot on its "sunlit" side, which is always pointed toward the star. But the map also shows that this spot is offset from the high-noon, or sun-facing, point by 30 degrees. According to scientists, ferocious winds traveling up to 6,000 miles per hour (nearly 9,700 kilometers per hour) are probably pushing the hot spot to the east. In addition to the warm spot, the map tells astronomers that temperatures on HD 189733b are fairly even all around. While the dark side is about 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit (650 degrees Celsius), the sunlit side is just a bit hotter at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (930 degrees Celsius). This mild temperature variation is more evidence for strong winds, since winds would help spread the heat from the hot, sunlit side over to the dark side. These data were collected by Spitzer's infrared array camera as the planet, a so-called transiting planet, passed in front of its star, then swung around and disappeared behind it (see animation). By observing the planet for half of its 2.2-day long orbit, Spitzer was able to measure the infrared light, or heat, coming from its entire surface. The infrared measurements, about a quarter of a million individual data points, were then assembled by scientists into pole-to-pole strips, and ultimately into the complete map shown here. |
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Mapping Exotic Worlds (Wides
…
| Title |
Mapping Exotic Worlds (Widescreen Version) |
| Description |
This animation shows the first-ever map of the surface of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system. The map, which shows temperature variations across the cloudy tops of a gas giant called HD 189733b, is made up of infrared data taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Everything else shown, for example the star and the lines, are artistic illustrations. The movie begins by showing a two-dimensional view of the map. Hotter temperatures are represented in brighter colors. The map is then shown over the three-dimensional surface of the planet, and the movie spins around, revealing the planet's star. A line projecting from the star to the planet highlights where the planet is directly hit by starlight -- a point known as "high noon." HD 189733b is what is known as a hot-Jupiter planet. These sizzling, gas planets practically hug their stars, orbiting at distances that are much closer than Mercury is to our sun. They whip around their stars quickly, for example, HD 189733b completes one orbit in just 2.2 days. Hot Jupiters are also thought to be tidally locked to their stars, just as our moon is to Earth. This means that one side of a hot Jupiter always faces its star. As predicted, the map reveals that HD 189733b has a warm spot on its "sunlit" side, which is always pointed toward the star. But the map also shows that this spot is offset from the high-noon point by 30 degrees. According to scientists, ferocious winds traveling up to 6,000 miles per hour (nearly 9,700 kilometers per hour) are probably pushing the hot spot to the east. In addition to the warm spot, the map tells astronomers that temperatures on HD 189733b are fairly even all around. While the dark side is about 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit (650 degrees Celsius), the sunlit side is just a bit hotter at about 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (930 degrees Celsius). This mild temperature variation is more evidence for strong winds, since winds would help spread the heat from the hot, sunlit side over to the dark side. These data were collected by Spitzer's infrared array camera as the planet, a so-called transiting planet, passed in front of its star, then swung around and disappeared behind it. By observing the planet for half of its 2.2-day long orbit, Spitzer was able to measure the infrared light, or heat, coming from its entire surface. The infrared measurements, about a quarter of a million individual data points, were then assembled by scientists into pole-to-pole strips, and ultimately into the complete map shown here. |
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Blacker than Black
| Title |
Blacker than Black |
| Description |
This artist's animation illustrates the hottest planet yet observed in the universe. The scorching ball of gas, a "hot Jupiter" called HD 149026b, is a sweltering 3,700 degrees Fahrenheit (2,040 degrees Celsius) -- about three times hotter than the rocky surface of Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system. The planet is so hot that astronomers believe it is absorbing almost all of the heat from its star, and reflecting very little to no light. Objects that reflect no sunlight are black. Consequently, HD 149026b might be the blackest known planet in the universe, in addition to the hottest. The temperature of this dark and balmy planet was taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. While the planet reflects no visible light, its heat causes it to radiate a little visible and a lot of infrared light. Spitzer, an infrared observatory, was able to measure this infrared light through a technique called secondary eclipse. HD 149026b is what is known as a transiting planet, which means that it crosses in front of and passes behind its star -- the secondary eclipse -- when viewed from Earth. By determining the drop in total infrared light that occurs when the planet disappears, astronomers can figure out how much infrared light is coming from the planet alone. The Spitzer observations of HD 149026b also suggest a hot spot in the middle of the side of the planet that always faces its star. Even though the planet is black, the spot would glow like a black lump of charcoal. HD 149026b is thought to be tidally locked, just as our moon is to Earth, such that one side of the planet is perpetually baked under the heat of its sun. Astronomers think that HD 149026b is probably blazing hot on its sunlit side, and much cooler on its dark side. A similar phenomenon was observed previously by Spitzer for the planet Upsilon Andromedae b. In the case of both planets, heat is not being evenly distributed across their surfaces. This is the opposite of what happens on Jupiter, where temperature differences are minimal all around. HD 149026b is located 256 light-years away in the constellation Hercules. It is the smallest known transiting planet, with a size similar to Saturn's and a suspected dense core 70 to 90 times the mass of Earth. It speeds around its star every 2.9 days. |
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Blacker than Black (Widescre
…
| Title |
Blacker than Black (Widescreen Version) |
| Description |
This artist's animation illustrates the hottest planet yet observed in the universe. The scorching ball of gas, a "hot Jupiter" called HD 149026b, is a sweltering 3,700 degrees Fahrenheit (2,040 degrees Celsius) -- about three times hotter than the rocky surface of Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system. The planet is so hot that astronomers believe it is absorbing almost all of the heat from its star, and reflecting very little to no light. Objects that reflect no sunlight are black. Consequently, HD 149026b might be the blackest known planet in the universe, in addition to the hottest. The temperature of this dark and balmy planet was taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. While the planet reflects no visible light, its heat causes it to radiate a little visible and a lot of infrared light. Spitzer, an infrared observatory, was able to measure this infrared light through a technique called secondary eclipse. HD 149026b is what is known as a transiting planet, which means that it crosses in front of and passes behind its star -- the secondary eclipse -- when viewed from Earth. By determining the drop in total infrared light that occurs when the planet disappears, astronomers can figure out how much infrared light is coming from the planet alone. The Spitzer observations of HD 149026b also suggest a hot spot in the middle of the side of the planet that always faces its star. Even though the planet is black, the spot would glow like a black lump of charcoal. HD 149026b is thought to be tidally locked, just as our moon is to Earth, such that one side of the planet is perpetually baked under the heat of its sun. Astronomers think that HD 149026b is probably blazing hot on its sunlit side, and much cooler on its dark side. A similar phenomenon was observed previously by Spitzer for the planet Upsilon Andromedae b. In the case of both planets, heat is not being evenly distributed across their surfaces. This is the opposite of what happens on Jupiter, where temperature differences are minimal all around. HD 149026b is located 256 light-years away in the constellation Hercules. It is the smallest known transiting planet, with a size similar to Saturn's and a suspected dense core 70 to 90 times the mass of Earth. It speeds around its star every 2.9 days. |
|
Mapping Exotic Worlds
| Title |
Mapping Exotic Worlds |
| Description |
This animation shows the first-ever map of the surface of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system. The map, which shows temperature variations across the cloudy tops of a gas giant called HD 189733b, is made up of infrared data taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Everything else shown, for example the star and the lines, are artistic illustrations. The movie begins by showing a two-dimensional view of the map. Hotter temperatures are represented in brighter colors. The map is then shown over the three-dimensional surface of the planet, and the movie spins around, revealing the planet's star. A line projecting from the star to the planet highlights where the planet is directly hit by starlight -- a point known as "high noon." HD 189733b is what is known as a hot-Jupiter planet. These sizzling, gas planets practically hug their stars, orbiting at distances that are much closer than Mercury is to our sun. They whip around their stars quickly, for example, HD 189733b completes one orbit in just 2.2 days. Hot Jupiters are also thought to be tidally locked to their stars, just as our moon is to Earth. This means that one side of a hot Jupiter always faces its star. As predicted, the map reveals that HD 189733b has a warm spot on its "sunlit" side, which is always pointed toward the star. But the map also shows that this spot is offset from the high-noon point by 30 degrees. According to scientists, ferocious winds traveling up to 6,000 miles per hour (nearly 9,700 kilometers per hour) are probably pushing the hot spot to the east. In addition to the warm spot, the map tells astronomers that temperatures on HD 189733b are fairly even all around. While the dark side is about 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit (650 degrees Celsius), the sunlit side is just a bit hotter at about 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (930 degrees Celsius). This mild temperature variation is more evidence for strong winds, since winds would help spread the heat from the hot, sunlit side over to the dark side. These data were collected by Spitzer's infrared array camera as the planet, a so-called transiting planet, passed in front of its star, then swung around and disappeared behind it. By observing the planet for half of its 2.2-day long orbit, Spitzer was able to measure the infrared light, or heat, coming from its entire surface. The infrared measurements, about a quarter of a million individual data points, were then assembled by scientists into pole-to-pole strips, and ultimately into the complete map shown here. |
|
Blacker than Black
| Title |
Blacker than Black |
| Description |
This artist's concept illustrates the hottest planet yet observed in the universe. The scorching ball of gas, a "hot Jupiter" called HD 149026b, is a sweltering 3,700 degrees Fahrenheit (2,040 degrees Celsius) -- about 3 times hotter than the rocky surface of Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system. The planet is so hot that astronomers believe it is absorbing almost all of the heat from its star, and reflecting very little to no light. Objects that reflect no sunlight are black. Consequently, HD 149026b might be the blackest known planet in the universe, in addition to the hottest. The temperature of this dark and balmy planet was taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. While the planet reflects no visible light, its heat causes it to radiate a little visible and a lot of infrared light. Spitzer, an infrared observatory, was able to measure this infrared light through a technique called secondary eclipse. HD 149026b is what is known as a transiting planet, which means that it crosses in front of and passes behind its star -- the secondary eclipse -- when viewed from Earth. By determining the drop in total infrared light that occurs when the planet disappears, astronomers can figure out how much infrared light is coming from the planet alone. The Spitzer observations of HD 149026b also suggest a hot spot in the middle of the side of the planet that always faces its star. Even though the planet is black, the spot would glow like a black lump of charcoal. HD 149026b is thought to be tidally locked, just as our moon is to Earth, such that one side of the planet is perpetually baked under the heat of its sun. Astronomers think that HD 149026b is probably blazing hot on its sunlit side, and much cooler on its dark side. A similar phenomenon was observed previously by Spitzer for the planet Upsilon Andromedae b. In the case of both planets, heat is not being evenly distributed across their surfaces. This is the opposite of what happens on Jupiter, where temperature differences are minimal all around. HD 149026b is located 256 light-years away in the constellation Hercules. It is the smallest known transiting planet, with a size similar to Saturn's and a suspected dense core 70 to 90 times the mass of Earth. It speeds around its star every 2.9 days. |
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NASA TV's This Week at NASA,
…
* Administrator Charlie Bold
…
01/08/2010
| Description |
* Administrator Charlie Bolden joined President Obama at a special White House ceremony honoring educators from across the country for their excellence in mathematics, science teaching and mentoring. The event was part of the President's ''Educate to Innovate'' campaign to boost student achievement in STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and math. * More than 3,500 astronomers and students gathered in Washington for the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. This year's hot topics included the discovery of ''hot Jupiters",-- five new exoplanets detected by the Kepler telescope in deep space. These discoveries range in size from Neptune to larger than Jupiter and are known as ''hot Jupiters" because of their mass and extreme temperatures, 2,200 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, they are far too hot to sustain life. * Space shuttle Endeavour moved from the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A, signaling the start of STS-130's upcoming mock launch countdown activities. Endeavour's astronauts and ground crews will participate in a launch dress rehearsal, known as the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, starting Jan. 19. The test provides shuttle crews an opportunity to participate in various simulated countdown activities, including equipment familiarization and emergency training. STS-130 is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on February 7 at 4:39 a.m. EST. * STS-130 will also take to the ISS a moon rock brought back from the lunar surface 40 years ago during the historic Apollo 11 mission, it'll be accompanied back to space by a small piece of the Earth's highest mountain. That rock was brought back from Mt. Everest last May by former NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski, who'd carried the Apollo lunar sample on his trek up the 29-thousand and 35-foot-high mountain. * STS-129 Mission Specialists Leland Melvin and Bobby Satcher were among the riders of a flower-adorned Space Odyssey float in this year's Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. |
| Date |
01/08/2010 |
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Moons of Interest
| Description |
Moons of Interest |
| Full Description |
Wrinkled and cracked Enceladus hangs in the distance as the pitted ring moon Janus, at right, rounds the outer edge of the F ring. Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across) is remarkable for its actively venting south polar region, while Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) is known for its orbital swap with the moon Epimetheus. The bright core of the F ring is perhaps 50 kilometers wide and contains numerous clumps and kinks. Dimmer, flanking ringlets on either side of the core wind into a tight spiral structure, discovered in Cassini images. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 21, 2006 at a distance of approximately 565,000 kilometers (351,000 miles) from Janus, 702,000 kilometers (436,000 miles) from Enceladus and 530,000 kilometers (329,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel on Janus and 4 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel on Enceladus. 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 |
June 26, 2006 |
|
Nature's Canvas
| Description |
Nature's Canvas |
| Full Description |
In a splendid portrait created by light and gravity, Saturn's lonely moon Mimas is seen against the cool, blue-streaked backdrop of Saturn's northern hemisphere. Delicate shadows cast by the rings arc gracefully across the planet, fading into darkness on Saturn's night side. The part of the atmosphere seen here appears darker and more bluish than the warm brown and gold hues seen in Cassini images of the southern hemisphere, due to preferential scattering of blue wavelengths by the cloud-free upper atmosphere. The bright blue swath near Mimas (398 kilometers, or 247 miles across) is created by sunlight passing through the Cassini division (4,800 kilometers, or 2,980 miles wide). The rightmost part of this distinctive feature is slightly overexposed and therefore bright white in this image. Shadows of several thin ringlets within the division can be seen here as well. The dark band that stretches across the center of the image is the shadow of Saturn's B ring, the densest of the main rings. Part of the actual Cassini division appears at the bottom, along with the A ring and the narrow, outer F ring. The A ring is transparent enough that, from this viewing angle, the atmosphere and threadlike shadows cast by the inner C ring are visible through it. Images taken with red, green and blue filters were combined to create this color view. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Nov. 7, 2004, at a distance of 3.7 million kilometers (2.3 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 22 kilometers (14 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 Cassini-Huygens 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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . *Image Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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A Real Shiner
| Description |
A Real Shiner |
| Full Description |
Saturn's moon Rhea shows off the moon equivalent of a black eye -- a bright, rayed crater near its eastern limb. Rhea is about half the size of Earth's moon. At 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) across, it is the second-largest moon orbiting Saturn. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Oct. 24, 2004, at a distance of about 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 40 degrees. The image scale is approximately 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. Cassini will image this hemisphere of Rhea again in mid-January 2005, just after the Huygens probe landing on Titan - with approximately 1-kilometer (0.6-mile) resolution. 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 Cassini-Huygens 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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . *Image Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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Rhea's Battered Surface
| Description |
Rhea's Battered Surface |
| Full Description |
This view of Saturn's second-largest moon, Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles, across), shows some of the large craters that cover its surface. There is a bright feature near the moon's right limb, possibly a large, rayed crater or bright icy material exposed by internal processes. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Sept. 26, 2004, at a distance of 7.1 million kilometers (4.4 million miles) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 75 degrees. The image scale is 43 kilometers (27 miles) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of four and contrast-enhanced to aid visibility. 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 Cassini-Huygens 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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . *Image Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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Huygens Landing Site Revisit
…
| Description |
Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
| Full Description |
January 13, 2006 This is an animated artist interpretation of the area surrounding the Huygens landing site, based on images and data returned Jan. 14, 2005. On January 14, 2005, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Huygens probe reached the upper layer of Titan's atmosphere and landed on the surface after a parachute descent 2 hours and 28 minutes later. As part of the joint NASA/ESA/ASI mission to Saturn and its moons, the Huygens probe was sent from the Cassini spacecraft to explore Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Titan's organic chemistry may be like that of the primitive Earth around 4000 million years ago, and it may hold clues about how life began on our planet. + Read the Feature |
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Saturn's View of Titan
| Description |
Saturn's View of Titan |
| Full Description |
As it approached Titan for yet another revealing encounter, the Cassini spacecraft acquired this image showing terrain on the moon's Saturn-facing hemisphere. Prominent dark areas found in the moon's equatorial region appear to contain vast and continuous dune fields, discovered by the Cassini Radar experiment and likely composed of particles that drop from Titan's unique, smoggy atmosphere. The dark regions seen here are provisionally named Aaru and Senkyo (at right), with parts of western Fensal and Aztlan showing at left, near the terminator. Titan is 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) across. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was obtained on July 2, 2006 at a distance of approximately 163,000 kilometers (101,000 miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 62 degrees. Image scale is 19 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 |
July 28, 2006 |
|
Shade from Epimetheus
| Description |
Shade from Epimetheus |
| Full Description |
The shadow of Epimetheus, one of Saturn's co-orbital moons, races across the planet's restless cloud tops. Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across) cruises along beyond the orbits of the narrow F ring and its shepherd moons. Farther south on Saturn, the swirls and eddies are obscured by the shadow of the outer A ring and its two prominent, moon-containing gaps, Encke (bottom) and Keeler (dim, at the A ring edge). 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 June 30, 2006 at a distance of approximately 335,000 kilometers (208,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 16 kilometers (10 miles) per pixel. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 24, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.9 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 162 degrees. 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 |
July 24, 2006 |
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Craters of Tethys
| Description |
Craters of Tethys |
| Full Description |
Two large craters and hints of several smaller ones are visible in this Cassini image of Saturn's icy moon Tethys (1060 kilometers, or 659 miles, across). The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Sept. 23, 2004, at a distance of 7.9 million kilometers (4.9 million miles) from Tethys and at a Sun- Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 80 degrees. The image scale is 48 kilometers (30 miles) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of four to aid visibility. 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 Cassini-Huygens 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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . *Image Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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Xanadu's Meandering Rivers
| Description |
Xanadu's Meandering Rivers |
| Full Description |
A network of river channels is located atop Xanadu, the continent-sized region on Saturn's moon Titan. This radar image was captured by the Cassini Radar Mapper on April 30, 2006. These winding, meandering river channels start from the top of the image and run like a fork in the road, splitting to the right and left of the image. At Titan's chilly conditions, streams of methane and/or ethane might flow across parts of the region. The picture is roughly 230 kilometers (143 miles) wide by 340 kilometers (211 miles) long, and shows features as small as 500 meters (1,640 feet). 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 |
| Date |
July 19, 2006 |
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Intriguing Enceladus
| Description |
Intriguing Enceladus |
| Full Description |
This Cassini view of Enceladus hints at the curvilinear, groove-like features that crisscross the moon's surface, as seen in images from NASA's Voyager spacecraft. The image shows the trailing hemisphere of Enceladus, which is the side opposite the moon's direction of motion in its orbit. Enceladus is 499 kilometers (310 miles) across. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Oct. 27, 2004, at a distance of about 766,000 kilometers (476,000 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 34 degrees. The image scale is 4.6 kilometers (2.8 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 Cassini-Huygens 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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . *Image Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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Candle in the Dark
| Description |
Candle in the Dark |
| Full Description |
Saturn's rings cut across an eerie scene that is ruled by Titan's luminous crescent and globe-encircling haze, broken by the small moon Enceladus, whose icy jets are dimly visible at its south pole. North is up. The scattered light around planet-sized Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) makes the moon's solid surface visible in silhouette. Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across) enjoys far clearer skies than its giant sibling moon. This view shows the unlit side of Saturn's rings. The image was taken in visible red light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 10, 2006 at a distance of approximately 3.9 million kilometers (2.4 million miles) from Enceladus and 5.3 million kilometers (3.3 million miles) from Titan. The view was obtained at a Sun-moon-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 160 degrees relative to both moons. Image scale is 23 kilometers (15 miles) per pixel on Enceladus and 32 kilometers (20 miles) on Titan. 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 |
August 3, 2006 |
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| Description |
Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
| Full Description |
This Voyager 2 photograph of Titan, taken August 23, 1981 from a range of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles), shows some detail in the cloud systems on this Saturnian moon. The southern hemisphere appears lighter in contrast, a well-defined band is seen near the equator, and a dark collar is evident at the north pole. All these bands are associated with cloud circulation in Titan's atmosphere. The extended haze, composed of submicron-size particles, is seen clearly around the satellite's limb. This image was composed from blue, green and violet frames. For a high resolution image, click here. |
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Watching Atlas's Waistline
| Description |
Watching Atlas's Waistline |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft finds oddly-shaped Atlas gliding along the edge of the A ring. The moon has a prominent equatorial bulge, which is accentuated here by the grazing viewing angle of Cassini, making Atlas appear pointy. Cassini images revealed in 2004 that a faint ring of material coincides with the orbit of Atlas (32 kilometers, or 20 miles across). See The Atlas Ring for more information. This view looks upward, toward the lit side of Saturn's rings. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 30, 2006 at a distance of approximately 283,000 kilometers (176,000 miles) from Atlas. 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 |
August 1, 2006 |
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The Veils of Titan
| Description |
Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
| Full Description |
The veils of Saturn's most mysterious moon have begun to lift in Cassini's eagerly awaited first glimpse of the surface of Titan, a world where scientists believe organic matter rains from hazy skies and seas of liquid hydrocarbons dot a frigid surface. Surface features previously observed only from Earth-based telescopes are now visible in images of Titan taken in mid-April by Cassini through one of the narrow angle camera's spectral filters specifically designed to penetrate the thick atmosphere. The image scale is 230 kilometers (143 miles) per pixel, and it rivals the best Earth-based images. The two images displayed here show Titan from a vantage point 17 degrees below its equator, yielding a view from 50 degrees north latitude all the way to its south pole. The image on the left was taken four days after the image on the right. Titan rotated 90 degrees in that time. The two images combined cover a region extending halfway around the moon. The observed brightness variations suggest a diverse surface, with variations in average reflectivity on scales of a couple hundred kilometers. The images were taken through a narrow filter centered at 938 nanometers, a spectral region in which the only obstacle to light is the carbon-based, organic haze. Despite the rather long 38-second exposure times, there is no noticeable smear due to spacecraft motion. The images have been magnified 10 times and enhanced in contrast to bring out details. No further processing to remove the effects of the overlying atmosphere has been performed. The superimposed grid over the images illustrates the orientation of Titan -- north is up and rotated 25 degrees to the left -- as well as the geographical regions of the satellite that are illuminated and visible. The yellow curve marks the position of the boundary between day and night on Titan. The enhanced image contrast makes the region within 20 degrees of this day and night division darker than usual. The Sun illuminates Titan from the right at a phase angle of 66 degrees. Because the Sun is in the southern hemisphere as seen from Titan, the north pole is canted relative to the boundary between day and night by 25 degrees. Also shown here is a map of relative surface brightness variations on Titan as measured in images taken in the 1080-nanometer spectral region in 1997 and 1998 by the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer on NASA¿s Hubble Space Telescope. These images have scales of 300 kilometers (186 miles) per pixel. The map colors indicate different surface reflectivities. From darkest to brightest, the color progression is: deep blue (darkest), light blue, green, yellow, red and deep red (brightest). The large, continent-sized, red feature extending from 60 degrees to 150 degrees west longitude is called Xanadu. It is unclear whether Xanadu is a mountain range, giant basin, smooth plain, or a combination of all three. It may be dotted with hydrocarbon lakes but that is also unknown. All that, is presently known is that in Earth-based images, it is the brightest region on Titan. A comparison between the Cassini images and the Hubble map indicates that Xanadu is visible as a bright region in the Cassini image on the right. The dark blue northwest-southeast trending feature from 210 degrees to 250 degrees west longitude, and the bright yellow/green region to the east (right) and southeast of it at minus 50 degrees latitude and 180 to 230 degrees west longitude on the Hubble map, can both be seen in the image on the left. It is noteworthy that the surface is visible to Cassini from its present approach viewing geometry, which is not the most favourable for surface viewing. These early Cassini observations are promising for upcoming imaging sequences of Titan in which the resolution improves by a factor of five over the next two months. These results are encouraging for future, in-orbit observations of Titan that will be acquired from lower, more favorable phase angles. The first opportunity to view small-scale features (2 kilometers or 1.2 miles) on the surface comes during a 350,000 kilometer (217,500 mile) flyby over Titan's south pole on July 2, 2004, only 30 hours after Cassini's insertion into orbit around the ringed 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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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Tethys' Great Rift
| Description |
Tethys' Great Rift |
| Full Description |
This dazzling view of Tethys shows the tremendous rift called Ithaca Chasma, which is 100 kilometers (60 miles) wide in places, and runs nearly three-fourths of the way around the icy moon. Tethys is 1,060 kilometers (659 miles) across. Adjacent to the great Chasma is a large multi-ring impact basin with a diameter of about 300 kilometers (185 miles). The inner ring of the basin is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) in diameter. The moon's heavily cratered face is indicative of an ancient surface. This view shows principally the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Tethys. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Dec. 15, 2004, at a distance of approximately 560,000 kilometers (348,000 miles) from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 91 degrees. The image scale is about 3 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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . *Image Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. |
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Down Under on Pan
| Description |
Down Under on Pan |
| Full Description |
Hiding within the Encke gap is the small moon Pan, partly in shadow and party cut off by the outer A ring in this view. Similar to Atlas, Pan appears to have a slight ridge around its middle, and like Atlas, Pan's orbit also coincides with a faint ringlet. (See Cruising with Pan for a movie featuring Pan). Pan is 26 kilometers (16 miles) across. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 30, 2006 at a distance of approximately 269,000 kilometers (167,000 miles) from Pan. Image scale is 2 kilometers (5,259 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 |
July 27, 2006 |
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Titan in Natural Color
| Description |
Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
| Full Description |
Despite the views of the surface of Saturn's Titan moon provided by the Cassini spacecraft, the moon remains inscrutable to the human eye. Images taken with the narrow angle camera using red, green and blue color filters were combined to create this view. In true-color images taken in visible wavelengths, Titan's photochemical smog, rich in organic material, gives the moon a smooth, featureless, orange glow. The Cassini orbiter carries specially designed spectral filters that can pierce Titan's veil. Furthermore, its piggybacked Huygens probe will descend through the atmosphere in early 2005, giving an up-close-and-personal look at this mysterious orange moon. The images making up this color view were obtained at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 67 degrees, and from a distance of approximately 13.1 million kilometers (8.2 million miles) on June 10, 2004. The image scale is approximately 79 kilometers (49 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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . *Image Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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World of Contrast
| Description |
World of Contrast |
| Full Description |
This Cassini spacecraft view shows how the bright and dark regions on Iapetus fit together like the seams of a baseball. Some of the material that covers the moon's dark, leading side spills over into regions on the brighter trailing side, creating the feature near upper right referred to by some scientists as "the Moat." (See Iapetus by Saturn Shine for a higher resolution view of this region.) The large impact basin above center in the dark terrain has a diameter of about 550 kilometers (340 miles). This view looks toward the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Iapetus (1,468 kilometers, or 912 miles across). North is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 25, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Iapetus. 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 |
August 2, 2006 |
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| Description |
Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
| Full Description |
The Huygens probe descends through Titan's murky, brownish-orange atmosphere of nitrogen and carbon-based molecules, beaming its findings to the distant Cassini orbiter. The probe is equipped with a variety of scientific sensors to measure the physical properties of the moon's atmosphere, it also carries an imaging device to return pictures of Titan's possibly hydrocarbon-lake-dotted surface. Painting courtesy of the European Space Agency. (P-42357) |
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Titan¿s Murky Skies
| Description |
Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
| Full Description |
Titan¿s featureless atmosphere as seen in visible light glares back at the viewer, challenging Cassini and its piggybacked Huygens probe to expose the moon's many secrets. The Huygens probe, built by the European Space Agency, along with Cassini's powerful cameras, will soon penetrate the thick atmospheric haze which enshrouds this moon, which is about the size of Mercury. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on May 23, 2004, from a distance of 21.6 million kilometers (13.4 million miles) from Titan. The image scale is 129 kilometers (80 miles) per pixel. The image was magnified to aid visibility. 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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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Night Lights
| Description |
Night Lights |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft looks across the unlit ringplane as Mimas glides silently in front of Dione. It is often difficult to tell from two-dimensional views like this where the moons are in relation to each other and Cassini. In this instance, Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across) is on the side of Saturn closest to Cassini and Dione (1,126 kilometers, or 700 miles across) is on the far side of the planet. Dione's night side is dimly lit by reflected light from Saturn. Much of the planet's sunlit side would be visible from the dark terrain seen here on Dione. Saturn's shadow stretches across the rings at the bottom of the image. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 3, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Mimas and 2.2 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Dione. The view was obtained at a Sun-moon-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 146 degrees relative to both moons. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Mimas and 13 kilometers (8 miles) on Dione. 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 |
July 25, 2006 |
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Highest Resolution View of D
…
| Description |
Highest Resolution View of Dione |
| Full Description |
This very detailed image taken during the Cassini spacecraft's closest approach to Saturn's moon Dione on Dec. 14, 2004 is centered on the wispy terrain of the moon. To the surprise of Cassini imaging scientists, the wispy terrain does not consist of thick ice deposits, but rather the bright ice cliffs created by tectonic fractures. 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 team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . *Image Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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