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Iapetus' New Year's Flyby
| Description |
Iapetus' New Year's Flyby |
| Full Description |
This map of the surface of Saturn's moon Iapetus (1,436 kilometers, or 892 miles across), generated from images taken by NASA's Voyager spacecraft, illustrates the imaging coverage planned during Cassini's flyby on Dec. 31, 2004. Cassini will glide past Iapetus at a distance of approximately 123,400 kilometers (76,700 miles) on New Year's Eve, at a speed of about 2 kilometers per second (4,474 miles per hour). Imaging coverage will be focused primarily on the dark terrain of Iapetus' leading hemisphere, in the area known as Cassini Regio. The spacecraft's namesake, Jean-Dominique Cassini, discovered Iapetus in 1672 and was only able to see the moon's bright trailing hemisphere. Colored lines on the map enclose regions that will be covered at different imaging scales as Cassini approaches Iapetus. Images from Cassini's flyby will be superior in resolution to those obtained by Voyager 2 in August 1981. Voyager 2 passed Iapetus at a distance of approximately 909,000 kilometers (564,800 miles) at closest approach, yielding a best resolution image of about 8 kilometers per pixel. The resolution of Cassini images from this flyby will be 1.5 kilometers per pixel and better. 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 . For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org . *Credit*: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
December 30, 2004 |
|
Enceladus: Trailing Hemisphe
…
| Description |
Enceladus: Trailing Hemisphere |
| Full Description |
A variety of surface ages is revealed in this 16-image mosaic taken during Cassini's first close flyby of Enceladus, on Feb. 17, 2005. This mosaic shows the trailing hemisphere of Enceladus -- the side of Enceladus that always faces away from the direction of the satellite's orbital motion. This hemisphere is dominated by Sarandib Planitia (just right of center), a region thought to be dominated by smooth plains in NASA Voyager 2 images taken in August 1981, but shown here in much higher resolution images to be covered in low ridges and troughs. Other major features seen in the region include Labtayt Sulci, a 1-kilometer- (0.6-mile-) deep canyon running northward from a cusp in the south polar terrain boundary (Cashmere Sulci) at lower right to a set of 1-kilometer-tall ridges (Cufa Dorsa and Ebony Dorsum) east of Sarandib Planitia (also seen in Enceladus Mosaic), as well as Samarkand Sulci, a band of ridges and troughs running along the western margin of Sarandib Planitia almost all the way north to Enceladus' north pole. In contrast to the youthful terrain of Sarandib Planitia and the terrain south of it, the terrain north and west of Sarandib appears much older. These regions are covered with impact craters at various stages of degradation, either from viscous relaxation (which causes the craters to flatten over time), or from tectonic activity. To create this single full-disk mosaic, the 16 images were reprojected into an orthographic projection centered at 2.3 degrees north latitude, 317.7 degrees west longitude with a pixel scale of 63 meters (207 feet) per pixel. The original images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle and wide-angle cameras from distances ranging from 10,850 to 29,750 kilometers (6,740 to 18,490 miles). The images had a phase, or sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, angle of 28 degrees. 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 |
December 29, 2006 |
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Video greeting to NASA JPL b
…
| 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 |
Saturn. Why this change? Well, for one thing it made a more straightforward storyline. And more important, the special effects department couldn't produce a Saturn that Stanley found convincing. That was just as well because if they had done so, the movie would have been badly dated by the Voyager missions, which showed Saturn's rings to be far more implausible than anyone had ever imagined. I have seen enough instances where Nature imitates art, so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed on what Cassini discovers at Iapetus. I want to thank everyone associated with this mission and the overall project. It may lack the glamour of manned spaceflight, but science projects are tremendously important for our understanding of the Solar System. And who knows, one day our survival on Earth might depend on what we discover out there. This is Arthur Clarke, wishing you a successful flyby., Video greeting to NASA JPL to mark the Iapetus flyby of Cassini spacecraft -- Sept. 10, 2007 by Arthur C. Clarke (The following is a transcript of the video greeting.) Hello! This is Arthur Clarke, joining you from my home in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I'm delighted to be part of this event to mark Cassini's flyby of Iapetus. I send my greetings to all my friends - known and unknown - who are gathered for this important occasion. I only wish I could be with you, but I'm now completely wheelchaired by Polio and have no plans to leave Sri Lanka again. Thanks to the World Wide Web, I have been following the progress of Cassini-Huygens mission from the time it was launched several years ago. As you know, I have more than a passing interest in Saturn. And I was really spooked in early 2005, when the Huygens probe returned sound recordings from the surface of Titan. This is exactly what I had described in my 1975 novel Imperial Earth, where my character is listening to the winds blowing over the desert plains. Perhaps that was a foretaste of things to come! On September 10, if everything goes according to plan, Cassini would give us our closest look at Iapetus - one of Saturn's most interesting moons. Half of Iapetus appears as dark as asphalt, and the other half is as bright as snow. When Giovanni Cassini discovered Iapetus in 1671, he could only see the bright side. We had a better glimpse when Voyager 2 flew past in August 1981 - but that was from almost a million kilometers away. In contrast, Cassini is going to come within a little over one thousand kilometers of Iapetus. This is a particularly exciting moment for fans of 2001: A Space Odyssey - because that's where the lone astronaut Dave Bowman discovers the Saturn monolith, which turns out to be a gateway to the stars. Chapter 35 in the novel is titled 'The Eye of Iapetus', and it contains this passage: "Iapetus was approaching so slowly that it scarcely seemed to move, and it was impossible to tell the exact moment when it made the subtle change from an astronomical body to a landscape, only fifty miles below. The faithful verniers gave their last spurts of thrust, then closed down forever. The ship was in its final orbit, completing a revolution every three hours at a mere eight hundred miles an hour - all the speed that was necessary in this feeble gravitation field." More than 40 years later, I cannot remember why I placed the Saturn monolith on Iapetus. At that time, in the early days of the Space Age, earth-based telescopes couldn't show any details of this celestial body. But I have always had a strange fascination for Saturn and its family of Moons. By the way, that 'family' has been growing at a very impressive rate. When Cassini was launched, we knew of only 18 moons. I understand it is now 60 - and counting.I can't resist the temptation to say: My God, it's full of moons! But in the movie, Stanley Kubrick decided to place all the actions at Jupiter, not |
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Solar System Montage of Voya
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| Title |
Solar System Montage of Voyager Images |
| Full Description |
This montage of images taken by the Voyager spacecraft of the planets and four of Jupiter's moons is set against a false-color Rosette Nebula with Earth's moon in the foreground. Studying and mapping Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and many of their moons, Voyager provided scientists with better images and data than they had ever had before or expected from the program. Although launched sixteen days after Voyager 2, Voyager 1's trajectory was a faster path, arriving at Jupiter in March 1979. Voyager 2 arrived about four months later in July 1979. Both spacecraft were then directed to Saturn with Voyager 1 arriving in November 1980 and Voyager 2 in August 1981. Voyager 2 was then diverted to the remaining gas giants, Uranus in January 1986 and Neptune in August 1989. Data collection continues by both Voyager 1 and 2 as the renamed Voyager Interstellar Mission searches for the edge of the solar wind influence (the heliopause) and exits the Solar System. A shortened list of the discoveries of Voyager 1 and 2 include:the discovery of the Uranian and Neptunian magnetospheres (magnetic environments caused by various types of planet cores), the discovery of twenty-two new satellites including three at Jupiter, three at Saturn, ten at Uranus, and six at Neptune, Io was found to have active volcanism (the only other Solar System body than Earth to be confirmed), Triton was found to have active geyser-like structures and an atmosphere, Auroral Zones (where gases become excited after being hit by solar particles) were discovered at Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, Jupiter was found to have rings, Neptune, originally thought to be too cold to support such atmospheric disturbances, had large-scale storms. |
| Date |
UNKNOWN |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Saturn Seen from Far and Nea
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| Title |
Saturn Seen from Far and Near |
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Saturn Seen from Far and Nea
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| Title |
Saturn Seen from Far and Near |
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Saturn's Moon Tethys
| Title |
Saturn's Moon Tethys |
| Explanation |
Tethys is one of the larger and closer moons of Saturn. It was visited by both Voyager spacecraft [ http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] - Voyager 1 in November 1980 and by Voyager [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960629.html ] 2 in August 1981. Tethys [ http://www.nineplanets.org/tethys.html ] is now known to be composed almost completely of water ice. Tethys [ http://www.solarviews.com/eng/tethys.htm ] shows a large impact crater [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990711.html ] that nearly circles the planet. That the impact that caused this crater did not disrupt the moon is taken as evidence that Tethys [ http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/features/planets/saturn/tethys.html ] was not completely frozen in its past. Two smaller moons, Telesto [ http://www.nineplanets.org/tethys.html#telesto ] and Calypso [ http://www.nineplanets.org/tethys.html#calypso ], orbit Saturn [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/saturn.html ] just ahead of and behind Tethys. Giovanni Cassini [ http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Cassini.html ] discovered Tethys in 1684. In 1997, NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ] launched [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971016.html ] a spacecraft named Cassini [ http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/spacecraft/ ] to Saturn that will arrive in 2004. |
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Saturn's Moon Tethys
| Title |
Saturn's Moon Tethys |
| Explanation |
Tethys [ http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~cjhamil/SolarSystem/tethys.html ] is one of the larger and closer moons of Saturn [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap951018.html ]. It was visited by both Voyager spacecraft - Voyager 1 in November 1980 and by Voyager 2 in August 1981. Tethys [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/tethys.html ] is now known to be composed almost completely of water ice. Tethys shows a large impact crater that nearly circles the planet. That the impact that caused this crater did not disrupt the moon is taken as evidence that Tethys was not completely frozen in its past. Tethys has two moons named Telesto [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/tethys.html#telesto ] and Calypso [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/tethys.html#calypso ] that orbit just ahead of it and behind it. Tethys was originally discovered in 1684 by Giovanni Cassini. |
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Iapetus' New Year's Flyby
PIA06165
Saturn
Imaging Science Subsystem -
…
| Title |
Iapetus' New Year's Flyby |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Figure 1 This map of the surface of Saturn's moon Iapetus (1,436 kilometers, or 892 miles across), generated from images taken by NASA's Voyager spacecraft, illustrates the imaging coverage planned during Cassini's flyby on Dec. 31, 2004. Cassini will glide past Iapetus at a distance of approximately 123,400 kilometers (76,700 miles) on New Year's Eve, at a speed of about 2 kilometers per second (4,474 miles per hour). Imaging coverage will be focused primarily on the dark terrain of Iapetus' leading hemisphere, in the area known as Cassini Regio. The spacecraft's namesake, Jean-Dominique Cassini, discovered Iapetus in 1672 and was only able to see the moon's bright trailing hemisphere. In figure 1, colored lines on the map enclose regions that will be covered at different imaging scales as Cassini approaches Iapetus. Images from Cassini's flyby will be superior in resolution to those obtained by Voyager 2 in August 1981. Voyager 2 passed Iapetus at a distance of approximately 909,000 kilometers (564,800 miles) at closest approach, yielding a best resolution image of about 8 kilometers per pixel. The resolution of Cassini images from this flyby will be 1.5 kilometers per pixel and better. 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 [ http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov ]. For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org [ http://ciclops.org ]. |
|
Iapetus' New Year's Flyby
PIA06165
Saturn
Imaging Science Subsystem -
…
| Title |
Iapetus' New Year's Flyby |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Figure 1 This map of the surface of Saturn's moon Iapetus (1,436 kilometers, or 892 miles across), generated from images taken by NASA's Voyager spacecraft, illustrates the imaging coverage planned during Cassini's flyby on Dec. 31, 2004. Cassini will glide past Iapetus at a distance of approximately 123,400 kilometers (76,700 miles) on New Year's Eve, at a speed of about 2 kilometers per second (4,474 miles per hour). Imaging coverage will be focused primarily on the dark terrain of Iapetus' leading hemisphere, in the area known as Cassini Regio. The spacecraft's namesake, Jean-Dominique Cassini, discovered Iapetus in 1672 and was only able to see the moon's bright trailing hemisphere. In figure 1, colored lines on the map enclose regions that will be covered at different imaging scales as Cassini approaches Iapetus. Images from Cassini's flyby will be superior in resolution to those obtained by Voyager 2 in August 1981. Voyager 2 passed Iapetus at a distance of approximately 909,000 kilometers (564,800 miles) at closest approach, yielding a best resolution image of about 8 kilometers per pixel. The resolution of Cassini images from this flyby will be 1.5 kilometers per pixel and better. 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 [ http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov ]. For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org [ http://ciclops.org ]. |
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Jupiter with Io Crossing
PIA00455
Sol (our sun)
Imaging Science Subsystem -
…
| Title |
Jupiter with Io Crossing |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Jupiter's satellite Io poses before the giant planet in this photo returned January 17, 1979, from a distance of 29 million miles (47 million kilometers). The satellite's shadow can be seen falling on the face of Jupiter at left. Io is traveling from left to right in its one-and-three-quarter-day orbit around Jupiter. Even from this great distance the image of Io shows dark poles and a bright equatorial region. Voyager will make its closest approach to Jupiter -- 174,000 miles (280,000 kilometer) -- on March 5. It will then continue to Saturn in November 1980, Meanwhile Voyager 2, a sister spacecraft, will fly past Jupiter July 9, 1979, and reach Saturn in August 1981. This color image was taken through orange, green and blue filters. The Voyagers are managed for NASA's Office of Space Science by Jet Propulsion Laboratory. |
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Enceladus: Trailing Hemisphe
…
PIA08353
Saturn
Imaging Science Subsystem -
…
| Title |
Enceladus: Trailing Hemisphere |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
A variety of surface ages is revealed in this 16-image mosaic taken during Cassini's first close flyby of Enceladus, on Feb. 17, 2005. This mosaic shows the trailing hemisphere of Enceladus -- the side of Enceladus that always faces away from the direction of the satellite's orbital motion. This hemisphere is dominated by Sarandib Planitia (just right of center), a region thought to be dominated by smooth plains in NASA Voyager 2 images taken in August 1981, but shown here in much higher resolution images to be covered in low ridges and troughs. Other major features seen in the region include Labtayt Sulci, a 1-kilometer- (0.6-mile-) deep canyon running northward from a cusp in the south polar terrain boundary (Cashmere Sulci) at lower right to a set of 1-kilometer-tall ridges (Cufa Dorsa and Ebony Dorsum) east of Sarandib Planitia (also seen in PIA06191 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06191 ]), as well as Samarkand Sulci, a band of ridges and troughs running along the western margin of Sarandib Planitia almost all the way north to Enceladus' north pole. In contrast to the youthful terrain of Sarandib Planitia and the terrain south of it, the terrain north and west of Sarandib appears much older. These regions are covered with impact craters at various stages of degradation, either from viscous relaxation (which causes the craters to flatten over time), or from tectonic activity. To create this single full-disk mosaic, the 16 images were reprojected into an orthographic projection centered at 2.3 degrees north latitude, 317.7 degrees west longitude with a pixel scale of 63 meters (207 feet) per pixel. The original images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle and wide-angle cameras from distances ranging from 10,850 to 29,750 kilometers (6,740 to 18,490 miles). The images had a phase, or sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, angle of 28 degrees. 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/home/index.cfm [ http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov ]. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org [ http://ciclops.org ]. |
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