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Search Results: All Fields similar to 'Sun or Mercury or Venus or Mars or Jupiter or Saturn or Or or Uranus or Neptune or Pluto' and Where equal to 'California'
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Sky and Planets
| Title |
Sky and Planets |
| Explanation |
On February 10th, an evocative [ http://www.jps.net/ssumner/ ] evening sky above Rocklin, California, USA inspired astrophotographer Steve Sumner to record this remarkable sight - five planets and the Moon. Near its first quarter phase, the bright Moon [ http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/ ] was intentionally overexposed but Saturn [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/ ], Jupiter [ http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/ ], Mars [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/ ], and Mercury [ http://sd-www.jhuapl.edu/MESSENGER/ ] (and, of course, planet Earth's [ http://www.earth.nasa.gov/ ] horizon) are all clearly visible in the deepening twilight. Notably absent in this grouping of naked-eye planets is Venus [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990903.html ] which is still putting in an early appearance as the morning star [ http://ispec.scibernet.com/station/morn_star.html ]. This month, Mercury has joined Venus in the dawn twilight while Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars still shine brightly in the western sky at nightfall [ http://www.skypub.com/sights/sights.shtml ] making another gorgeous close grouping with the crescent Moon [ http://www.inconstantmoon.com/ ]. |
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Pioneer 10 Trajectory
| Title |
Pioneer 10 Trajectory |
| Full Description |
This image, drawn in 1970, is an artist's rendering of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft trajectory, with the planets labeled and a list of the instruments that were intended to be flown. Before the use of computer animation, artists were hired by JPL and NASA to depict a spacecraft in flight, for use as a visual aid to promote the project during development. Pioneer 10 was managed by NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The Pioneer F spacecraft, as it was known before launch, was designed and built by TRW Systems Group, Inc. JPL developed three instruments that flew on the spacecraft: Magnetic Fields, S-Band Occultation, and Celestial Mechanics, as well as running the Deep Space Network which provided tracking and data system support. Caltech was responsible for the Jovian Infrared Thermal Structure experiment. Pioneer was very successful, crossing the orbit of Mars and the asteroid belt beyond it, encountering, studying, and photographing Jupiter, then crossing the orbits of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It left the solar system in 1983 and has been contacted several times in the past few years. As of July 2001, the spacecraft was still able to send a return signal to Earth. At Jupiter, the experiments of Pioneer were used to examine the environmental and atmospheric characteristics of the giant planet. Pioneer was also the vital precursor to all future flights to the outer solar system. It determined that a spacecraft could safely fly through the asteroid belt. It also measured the intensity of Jupiter's radiation belt so that NASA could design future Jupiter (and other outer planets) orbiters. |
| Date |
03/07/1972 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Voyager Spacecraft During Vi
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| Title |
Voyager Spacecraft During Vibration Testing |
| Full Description |
Two Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets and some of their satellites. A prototype Voyager spacecraft is shown at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as it successfully passed vibration tests which simulated the expected launch environment. The large parabolic antenna at the top is 3.7 meters in diameter and was used at both S-band and X-band radio frequencies for communicating with Earth over the great distances from the outer planets. The spacecraft received electrical power from three nuclear power sources (lower left). The shiny cylinder on the left side under the antenna contained a folded boom, which extended after launch to hold a magnetometer instrument thirteen meters away from the body of the spacecraft. The truss-like structure on the right side is the stowed instrument boom which supported three science instruments and a scan platform. The scan platform allowed the accurate pointing of two cameras and three other science instruments at Jupiter, Saturn, the rings of Saturn, Jupiter's moons, Saturn's moons, Uranus, moons of Uranus, and Neptune. |
| Date |
03/25/1977 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Saturn and its rings
PIA01969
Sol (our sun)
Imaging Science Subsystem -
…
| Title |
Saturn and its rings |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Voyager 1 looked back at Saturn on Nov. 16, 1980, four days after the spacecraft flew past the planet, to observe the appearance of Saturn and its rings from this unique perspective. A few of the spokelike ring features discovered by Voyager appear in the rings as bright patches in this image, taken at a distance of 5.3 million kilometers (3.3 million miles) from the planet. Saturn's shadow falls upon the rings, and the bright Saturn crescent is seen through all but the densest portion of the rings. From Saturn, Voyager 1 is on a trajectory taking the spacecraft out of the ecliptic plane, away from the Sun and eventually out of the solar system (by about 1990). Although its mission to Jupiter and Saturn is nearly over (the Saturn encounter ends Dec. 18, 1980), Voyager 1 will be tracked by the Deep Space Network as far as possible in an effort to determine where the influence of the Sun ends and interstellar space begins. Voyager 1's flight path through interstellar space is in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. Voyager 2 will reach Saturn on August 25, 1981, and is targeted to encounter Uranus in 1986 and possibly Neptune in 1989. The Voyager project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. |
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Sedna Orbit Animation
PIA05565
Samuel Oschin Telescope
| Title |
Sedna Orbit Animation |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This animation shows the location of the newly discovered planet-like object, dubbed "Sedna," in relation to the rest of the solar system. Starting at the inner solar system, which includes the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars (all in yellow), the view pulls away through the asteroid belt and the orbits of the outer planets beyond (green). Pluto and the distant Kuiper Belt objects are seen next until finally Sedna comes into view. As the field widens the full orbit of Sedna can be seen along with its current location. Sedna is nearing its closest approach to the Sun, its 10,000 year orbit typically takes it to far greater distances. Moving past Sedna, what was previously thought to be the inner edge of the Oort cloud appears. The Oort cloud is a spherical distribution of cold, icy bodies lying at the limits of the Sun's gravitational pull. Sedna's presence suggests that this Oort cloud is much closer than scientists believed. |
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Voyager Tour Montage
| Title |
Voyager Tour Montage |
| Full Description |
This montage of images of the planets visited by Voyager 2 was prepared from an assemblage of images taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. The Voyager Project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. |
| Date |
08/01/1989 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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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 solar system's largest moon, Ganymede, is captured here alongside the planet Jupiter in a color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 3, 2000. Ganymede is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Both Ganymede and Titan have greater surface area than the entire Eurasian continent on our planet. Cassini was 26.5 million kilometers (16.5 million miles) from Ganymede when this image was taken. The smallest visible features are about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) across. The bright area near the south (bottom) of Ganymede is Osiris, a large, relatively new crater surrounded by bright icy material ejected by the impact which created it. Elsewhere, Ganymede displays dark terrains that NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft have shown to be old and heavily cratered. The brighter terrains are younger and laced by grooves. Various kinds of grooved terrains have been seen on many icy moons in the solar system. These are believed to be the surface expressions of warm, pristine, water-rich materials that moved to the surface and froze. Ganymede has proven to be a fascinating world, the only moon known to have a magnetosphere, or magnetic environment, produced by a convecting metal core. The interaction of Ganymede's and Jupiter's magnetospheres may produce dazzling variations in the auroral glows in Ganymede's tenuous atmosphere of oxygen. 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 For higher resolution, click here. |
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Ganymede and Jupiter
PIA02862
Sol (our sun)
Imaging Science Subsystem
| Title |
Ganymede and Jupiter |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
The solar system's largest moon, Ganymede, is captured here alongside the planet Jupiter in a color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 3, 2000. Ganymede is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Both Ganymede and Titan have greater surface area than the entire Eurasian continent on our planet. Cassini was 26.5 million kilometers (16.5 million miles) from Ganymede when this image was taken. The smallest visible features are about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) across. The bright area near the south (bottom) of Ganymede is Osiris, a large, relatively new crater surrounded by bright icy material ejected by the impact, which created it. Elsewhere, Ganymede displays dark terrains that NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft have shown to be old and heavily cratered. The brighter terrains are younger and laced by grooves. Various kinds of grooved terrains have been seen on many icy moons in the solar system. These are believed to be the surface expressions of warm, pristine, water-rich materials that moved to the surface and froze. Ganymede has proven to be a fascinating world, the only moon known to have a magnetosphere, or magnetic environment, produced by a convecting metal core. The interaction of Ganymede's and Jupiter's magnetospheres may produce dazzling variations in the auroral glows in Ganymede's tenuous atmosphere of oxygen. 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. |
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Rounding the Corner
| Description |
Rounding the Corner |
| Full Description |
+ View Movie A movie sequence of Saturn's G ring over a full orbital revolution captures its single bright arc on the ring's inner edge. The movie is composed of 70 individual narrow-angle camera images taken during a period of just over 20 hours while Cassini stared at the ring. The orbital period for particles in the center of the G ring is about 19.6 hours. At the beginning of the sequence, the ring arc, a site of concentrated ring particles, is seen rounding the ring edge. The arc orbits at a distance of 167,496 kilometers (104,080 miles). It is about 250 kilometers (155 miles) wide in radius and subtends less than 60 degrees of orbital longitude. The classical position of the G ring is about 172,600 kilometers (107,250 miles) from Saturn, and the arc blends smoothly into this region. Scientists suspect that bodies trapped in this remarkably bright feature may be the source of the G ring material, driven outward from the arc by electromagnetic forces in the Saturn system. The arc itself is likely held in place by gravitational resonances with Mimas of the type that anchor the famed arcs in Neptune's rings. There is an obvious narrow dark gap in the G ring beyond the arc. This feature is close to yet another resonance with Mimas, but no arcs are present at this locale. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 10 degrees above the ringplane. Imaging artifacts jitter within the scene, a result of the high phase angle and faintness of the G ring. Stars slide across the background from upper left to lower right. The images in this movie were taken on Sept. 19 and 20 at a distance of approximately 2.1 to 2.2 million kilometers (1.3 to 1.4 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-G ring-spacecraft, or phase, angle that ranged from 167 to 164 degrees. Image scale is about 13 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel in the radial (outward from Saturn) direction. 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 |
October 11, 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 |
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 (PIA02826) For higher resolution, click here., These two images, taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, show Jupiter in a near-infrared wavelength, and catch Europa, one of Jupiter's largest moons, at different phases. Cassini's narrow-angle camera took both images, the upper one from a distance of 69.9 million kilometers (43.4 million miles) on Oct. 17, 2000, and the lower one from a distance of 65.1 million kilometers (40.4 million miles) on Oct. 22, 2000. Both were taken at a wavelength of 727 nanometers, which is in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The camera's 727-nanometer filter accepts only a narrow spectral range centered on a relatively strong absorption feature due to methane gas. In this spectral region, the amount of light reflected by Jupiter's clouds is only half that reflected in a nearby spectral region outside the methane band. The features that are brightest in these images are the highest and thickest clouds, such as the Great Red Spot and the band of clouds girding the equator, as these scatter sunlight back to space before it has a chance to be absorbed by the methane gas in the atmosphere. This stratigraphic effect can be seen even more prominently in an image released on Oct. 23, 2000, taken in the stronger methane band at 889 nanometers, in which the only bright features are the highest hazes over the equator, the poles and the Great Red Spot. By comparing images taken in the 727 nanometer filter with others taken at 889 nanometers and at a weaker methane band at 619 nanometers, researchers will probe the heights and thickness of clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere. Europa, a satellite of Jupiter about the size of Earth's Moon, is visible to the left of Jupiter in the upper image, and in front of the planet in the lower image. Another of Jupiter's Galilean satellites, Ganymede, which is larger than the planet Mercury, is to the right in the upper image, with brightness variations visible across its surface. In the upper image, Europa is caught entering Jupiter's shadow, and hence appears as a bright crescent, in the lower image, it is seen about one-and-a-half orbits later, in transit across the face of the planet. Because there is neither methane nor any strong absorber in this spectral region on the surface of Europa, it appears strikingly white and bright compared to Jupiter. Imaging observations of the moons Europa, Io and Ganymede entering and passing through Jupiter's shadow are planned for the two-week period surrounding Cassini's closest approach on Dec. 30, 2000. The purpose of these eclipse observations is to detect and measure the variability of emissions that arise from the interaction of the satellites' tenuous atmospheres with the charged particles trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field. At the times these images were taken, Cassini was about 3.3 degrees above Jupiter's equatorial plane, and the Sun-Jupiter-spacecraft angle was about 20 degrees. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian |
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Rounding the Corner
| 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 |
A movie sequence of Saturn's G ring over a full orbital revolution captures its single bright arc on the ring's inner edge. The movie is composed of 70 individual narrow-angle camera images taken during a period of just over 20 hours while Cassini stared at the ring. The orbital period for particles in the center of the G ring is about 19.6 hours. At the beginning of the sequence, the ring arc, a site of concentrated ring particles, is seen rounding the ring edge. The arc orbits at a distance of 167,496 kilometers (104,080 miles). It is about 250 kilometers (155 miles) wide in radius and subtends less than 60 degrees of orbital longitude. The classical position of the G ring is about 172,600 kilometers (107,250 miles) from Saturn, and the arc blends smoothly into this region. Scientists suspect that bodies trapped in this remarkably bright feature may be the source of the G ring material, driven outward from the arc by electromagnetic forces in the Saturn system. The arc itself is likely held in place by gravitational resonances with Mimas of the type that anchor the famed arcs in Neptune's rings. There is an obvious narrow dark gap in the G ring beyond the arc. This feature is close to yet another resonance with Mimas, but no arcs are present at this locale. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 10 degrees above the ringplane. Imaging artifacts jitter within the scene, a result of the high phase angle and faintness of the G ring. Stars slide across the background from upper left to lower right. The images in this movie were taken on Sept. 19 and 20 at a distance of approximately 2.1 to 2.2 million kilometers (1.3 to 1.4 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-G ring-spacecraft, or phase, angle that ranged from 167 to 164 degrees. Image scale is about 13 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel in the radial (outward from Saturn) direction. 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 |
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Saturn's Blue Cranium
PIA06177
Sol (our sun)
Imaging Science Subsystem -
…
| Title |
Saturn's Blue Cranium |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Saturn's northern hemisphere is presently a serene blue, more befitting of Uranus or Neptune, as seen in this natural color image from Cassini. Light rays here travel a much longer path through the relatively cloud-free upper atmosphere. Along this path, shorter wavelength blue light rays are scattered effectively by gases in the atmosphere, and it is this scattered light that gives the region its blue appearance. Why the upper atmosphere in the northern hemisphere is so cloud-free is not known, but may be related to colder temperatures brought on by the ring shadows cast there. Shadows cast by the rings surround the pole, looking almost like dark atmospheric bands. The ring shadows at higher latitudes correspond to locations on the ringplane that are farther from the planet--in other words, the northernmost ring shadow in this view is made by the outer edge of the A ring. Spots of bright clouds also are visible throughout the region. This view is similar to an infrared image obtained by Cassini at nearly the same time (see PIA06567 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06567 ]). The infrared view shows a great deal more detail in the planet's atmosphere, however. Images obtained using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on Dec. 14, 2004, at a distance of 719,200 kilometers (446,900 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is about 39 kilometers (24 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 [ http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov ] and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org [ http://ciclops.org ]. |
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Saturn's Blue Cranium
| Description |
Saturn's Blue Cranium |
| Full Description |
Saturn's northern hemisphere is presently a serene blue, more befitting of Uranus or Neptune, as seen in this natural color image from Cassini. Light rays here travel a much longer path through the relatively cloud-free upper atmosphere. Along this path, shorter wavelength blue light rays are scattered effectively by gases in the atmosphere, and it is this scattered light that gives the region its blue appearance. Why the upper atmosphere in the northern hemisphere is so cloud-free is not known, but may be related to colder temperatures brought on by the ring shadows cast there. Shadows cast by the rings surround the pole, looking almost like dark atmospheric bands. The ring shadows at higher latitudes correspond to locations on the ringplane that are farther from the planet -- in other words, the northernmost ring shadow in this view is made by the outer edge of the A ring. Spots of bright clouds also are visible throughout the region. This view is similar to an infrared image obtained by Cassini at nearly the same time (see http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06567). The infrared view shows a great deal more detail in the planet's atmosphere, however. Images obtained using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on Dec. 14, 2004, at a distance of 719,200 kilometers (446,900 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is about 39 kilometers (24 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 . For images visit the Cassini imaging team home page http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
February 8, 2005 |
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Pale Blue Orb (1)
| Description |
Pale Blue Orb |
| Full Description |
Not since NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft saw our home as a pale blue dot from beyond the orbit of Neptune has Earth been imaged in color from the outer solar system. Now, Cassini casts powerful eyes on our home planet, and captures Earth, a pale blue orb -- and a faint suggestion of our moon -- among the glories of the Saturn system. Earth is captured here in a natural color portrait made possible by the passing of Saturn directly in front of the sun from Cassini's point of view. At the distance of Saturn's orbit, Earth is too narrowly separated from the sun for the spacecraft to safely point its cameras and other instruments toward its birthplace without protection from the sun's glare. The Earth-and-moon system is visible as a bright blue point on the right side of the image above center. Here, Cassini is looking down on the Atlantic Ocean and the western coast of north Africa. The phase angle of Earth, seen from Cassini is about 30 degrees. A magnified view of the image taken through the clear filter (monochrome) shows the moon as a dim protrusion to the upper left of Earth. Seen from the outer solar system through Cassini's cameras, the entire expanse of direct human experience, so far, is nothing more than a few pixels across. Earth no longer holds the distinction of being our solar system's only "water world," as several other bodies suggest the possibility that they too harbor liquid water beneath their surfaces. The Saturnian moon, Enceladus, is among them, and is also captured on the left in this image (see inset), with its plume of water ice particles and swathed in the blue E ring which it creates. Delicate fingers of material extend from the active moon into the E ring. See Ghostly Fingers of Enceladus, for a more detailed view of these newly-revealed features. The narrow tenuous G ring and the main rings are seen at the right. The view looks down from about 15 degrees above the un-illuminated side of the rings. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this view. The image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 15, 2006, at a distance of approximately 2.1 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft angle of almost 179 degrees. Image scale is 129 kilometers (80 miles) per pixel. At this time, Cassini was nearly 1.5 billion kilometers (930 million miles) from Earth. 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 |
September 19, 2006 |
|
Hubble Captures a Rare Eclip
…
| Title |
Hubble Captures a Rare Eclipse on Uranus |
|
Frame-Filling Rhea
| Description |
Frame-Filling Rhea |
| Full Description |
Saturn's moon Rhea is an alien ice world, but in this frame-filling view it is vaguely familiar. Here, Rhea's cratered surface looks in some ways similar to our own Moon, or the planet Mercury. But make no mistake - Rhea's icy exterior would quickly melt if this moon were brought as close to the Sun as Mercury. Rhea is 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) across. Instead, Rhea preserves a record of impacts at its post in the outer solar system. The large impact crater at center left (near the terminator or boundary between day and night), called Izanagi, is just one of the numerous large impact basins on Rhea. This view shows principally Rhea's southern polar region, centered on 58 degrees South, 265 degrees West. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 1, 2005, at a distance of approximately 255,000 kilometers (158,000 miles) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 62 degrees. Image scale is 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
September 9, 2005 |
|
Hands-On Book of Hubble Imag
…
| Title |
Hands-On Book of Hubble Images Allows the Visually Impaired to "Touch the Universe |
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Dusty Planetary Disks Around
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| Title |
Dusty Planetary Disks Around Two Nearby Stars Resemble Our Kuiper Belt |
| General Information |
What is a News Nugget? News Nuggets are bulletins from the world of astronomy. These two bright debris disks of ice and dust appear to be the equivalent of our own solar system's Kuiper Belt, a ring of icy rocks outside the orbit of Neptune and the source of short-period comets. The disks encircle the types of stars around which there could be habitable zones and planets for life to develop. The disks seem to have a central area cleared of debris, perhaps by planets. |
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An Inner Neptune for 55 Canc
…
| Title |
An Inner Neptune for 55 Cancri |
| Explanation |
Is our Solar System [ http://www.nineplanets.org/overview.html ] unique? The discovery [ http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0408585 ] of a Neptune [ http://www.nineplanets.org/neptune.html ]-mass planet in an sub-Mercury orbit around nearby Sun [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/sun.html ]-like star 55 Cancri [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020614.html ], announced [ http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html ] yesterday along with the discovery of other similar systems, gives a new indication that planetary systems [ http://exoplanets.org/exoplanets_pub.html ] as complex as our own Solar System [ http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] likely exist elsewhere. The planet, discovered [ http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/releases/2004/0831.html ] in data from the Hobby-Eberly telescope [ http://www.as.utexas.edu/mcdonald/het/het.html ] in Texas, the Lick Observatory [ http://www.ucolick.org/ ] in California, and the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010806.html ], is one of four planets now known to orbit 55 Cancri [ http://exoplanets.org/esp/55cnc/55cnc.shtml ] -- the others being similar in mass to Jupiter. The finding involved noting subtle changes in the speed [ http://exoplanets.org/doppframe.html ] of the star caused by its orbiting planets. The above drawing [ http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/news/ssu_images.html ] depicts what this planet might look like, assuming a mass similar to Neptune [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/neptune.html ], but a composition similar [ http://www.solstation.com/stars/4planets.htm ] to Earth. The star 55 Cancri [ http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/55cnc.html ], only 40 light-years distant, is visible [ http://irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu/Science/GalleryOfImages/55cancri.html ] with binoculars [ http://www.birdwatching.com/optics/binoculars1.html ] towards the constellation [ http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/constellations.html ] of Cancer [ http://www.astronomical.org/portal/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=12 ]. |
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Band of Rubble
PIA07854
| Title |
Band of Rubble |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This artist's animation illustrates a massive asteroid belt in orbit around a star the same age and size as our Sun. Evidence for this possible belt was discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope when it spotted warm dust around the star, presumably from asteroids smashing together. The view starts from outside the belt, where planets like the one shown here might possibly reside, then moves into to the dusty belt itself. A collision between two asteroids is depicted near the end of the movie. Collisions like this replenish the dust in the asteroid belt, making it detectable to Spitzer. The alien belt circles a faint, nearby star called HD 69830 located 41 light-years away in the constellation Puppis. Compared to our own solar system's asteroid belt, this one is larger and closer to its star - it is 25 times as massive, and lies just inside an orbit equivalent to that of Venus. Our asteroid belt circles between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Because Jupiter acts as an outer wall to our asteroid belt, shepherding its debris into a series of bands, it is possible that an unseen planet is likewise marshalling this belt's rubble. Previous observations using the radial velocity technique did not locate any large gas giant planets, indicating that any planets present in this system would have to be the size of Saturn or smaller. Asteroids are chunks of rock from "failed" planets, which never managed to coalesce into full-sized planets. Asteroid belts can be thought of as construction sites that accompany the building of rocky planets. |
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Giant Landslide on Iapetus
| Description |
Giant Landslide on Iapetus |
| Full Description |
A spectacular landslide within the low-brightness region of Iapetus's surface known as Cassini Regio is visible in this image from Cassini. Iapetus is one of the moons of Saturn. The landslide material appears to have collapsed from a scarp 15 kilometers high (9 miles) that forms the rim of an ancient 600 kilometer (375 mile) impact basin. Unconsolidated rubble from the landslide extends halfway across a conspicuous, 120-kilometer diameter (75-mile) flat-floored impact crater that lies just inside the basin scarp. Landslides are common geological phenomena on many planetary bodies, including Earth and Mars. The appearance of this landslide on an icy satellite with low-brightness cratered terrain is reminiscent of landslide features that were observed during NASA's Galileo mission on the Jovian satellite Callisto. The fact that the Iapetus landslide traveled many kilometers from the basin scarp could indicate that the surface material is very fine-grained, and perhaps was fluffed by mechanical forces that allowed the landslide debris to flow extended distances. In this view, north is to the left of the picture and solar illumination is from the bottom of the frame. The image was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Dec. 31, 2004, at a distance of about 123,400 kilometers (76,677 miles) from Iapetus and at a Sun-Iapetus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 78 degrees. Resolution achieved in the original image was 740 meters (2,428 feet) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of two 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 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 images visit the Cassini imaging team home page http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 7, 2005 |
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Persistent Arc
| 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 movie shows a bright arc of material flashing around the edge of Saturn's G ring, a tenuous ring outside the main ring system. The arc is the same feature identified in images of the G ring taken in May 2005 (see Rings image titled "Arc in the Tenuous G Ring"). Scientists have seen the arc a handful of times over the past year, and it always appears to be a few times brighter than the rest of the ring and very tightly confined to a narrow strip along the inside edge of the G ring. Imaging team members believe that this feature is long-lived and may be held together by resonant interactions with the moon Mimas of the type that corral similar ring arcs around Neptune. The movie consists of 15 frames acquired every half hour over a period of seven-and-a-half hours. The version in the lower panel is vertically stretched by a factor of five to make the arc easier to see. The clear-filter images in this movie sequence were acquired by the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 25, 2006, at a distance of 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale on the sky at the distance of Saturn is about 24 kilometers (15 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 |
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Jupiter and Europa in Near I
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These two images, taken by N
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11/6/00
| Date |
11/6/00 |
| Description |
These two images, taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, show Jupiter in a near-infrared wavelength, and catch Europa, one of Jupiter's largest moons, at different phases. Cassini's narrow-angle camera took both images, the upper one from a distance of 69.9 million kilometers (43.4 million miles) on Oct. 17, 2000, and the lower one from a distance of 65.1 million kilometers (40.4 million miles) on Oct. 22, 2000. Both were taken at a wavelength of 727 nanometers, which is in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The camera's 727-nanometer filter accepts only a narrow spectral range centered on a relatively strong absorption feature due to methane gas. In this spectral region, the amount of light reflected by Jupiter's clouds is only half that reflected in a nearby spectral region outside the methane band. The features that are brightest in these images are the highest and thickest clouds, such as the Great Red Spot and the band of clouds girding the equator, as these scatter sunlight back to space before it has a chance to be absorbed by the methane gas in the atmosphere. This stratigraphic effect can be seen even more prominently in an image released on Oct. 23, 2000, taken in the stronger methane band at 889 nanometers, in which the only bright features are the highest hazes over the equator, the poles and the Great Red Spot. By comparing images taken in the 727 nanometer filter with others taken at 889 nanometers and at a weaker methane band at 619 nanometers, researchers will probe the heights and thickness of clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere. Europa, a satellite of Jupiter about the size of Earth's Moon, is visible to the left of Jupiter in the upper image, and in front of the planet in the lower image. Another of Jupiter's Galilean satellites, Ganymede, which is larger than the planet Mercury, is to the right in the upper image, with brightness variations visible across its surface. In the upper image, Europa is caught entering Jupiter's shadow, and hence appears as a bright crescent, in the lower image, it is seen about one-and-a-half orbits later, in transit across the face of the planet. Because there is neither methane nor any strong absorber in this spectral region on the surface of Europa, it appears strikingly white and bright compared to Jupiter. Imaging observations of the moons Europa, Io and Ganymede entering and passing through Jupiter's shadow are planned for the two-week period surrounding Cassini's closest approach on Dec. 30, 2000. The purpose of these eclipse observations is to detect and measure the variability of emissions that arise from the interaction of the satellites' tenuous atmospheres with the charged particles trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field. At the times these images were taken, Cassini was about 3.3 degrees above Jupiter's equatorial plane, and the Sun-Jupiter- spacecraft angle was about 20 degrees. 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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The Saturn-bound Cassini spa
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8/16/99
| Date |
8/16/99 |
| Description |
The Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft will fly past the Earth Tuesday, August 17, at 8:28 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (August 18 at 03:28 Universal Time). Launched in October 1997, Cassini will gain a boost in speed during its Earth flyby, which occurs at an altitude of 1,166 kilometers (725 miles) over the eastern South Pacific at -23.5 degrees latitude and 231.5 degrees longitude. Two successful flybys of Venus, next week's flyby of Earth, and a flyby of Jupiter in December 2000 all give Cassini the additional speed it needs to reach Saturn in 2004. Cassini is a joint endeavor of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, and is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. [Image for NASA-JPL was created by John Aiello of JPL.] |
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Phoebe's Mineral Distributio
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| Description |
Phoebe's Mineral Distribution |
| Full Description |
These set of images were created during the Phoebe flyby on June 11, 2004. The images show the location and distribution of water-ice, ferric iron, carbon dioxide and an unidentified material on the tiny moon of Saturn. The first image was taken with Cassini's narrow angle camera and is shown for comparison purposes only. The other images were taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer onboard Cassini. The infrared image of Phoebe obtained at a distance of about 16,000 km (10,000 miles) shows a large range of bright and dark features. The resolution of the image is about 4 km (2.5 miles). carbon dioxide on the surface of Phoebe is distributed globally, although it appears to be more prevalent in the darker regions of the satellite. The existence of carbon dioxide strongly suggests that Phoebe did not originate in the asteroid belt, but rather in much colder regions of the Solar System such as the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a vast reservoir of small, primitive bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. An unidentified substance also appears to be more abundant in the darker regions. A map showing the distribution of water ice (blue), ferric iron (red), which is common in minerals on Earth and other planets, and the unidentified material (green). Water ice is associated with the brighter regions, while the other two materials are more abundant in the darker regions. 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 was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer home page at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu/ . Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
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Phoebe Hi-Resolution Mosaic
| Description |
Phoebe Hi-Resolution Mosaic |
| Full Description |
During its historic close encounter with Phoebe, the Cassini spacecraft captured a series of high resolution images of the small moon, six of which have been put together to create this mosaic. Phoebe shows an unusual variation in brightness over its surface due to the existence on some crater slopes and floors of bright material - thought to contain ice - on what is otherwise one of the darkest known bodies in the solar system. Bright streaks on the rim of the large crater in the North (up in this image) may have been revealed by the collapse of overlying darker material from the crater wall. The large crater below right-of-center shows evidence of layered deposits of alternating bright and dark material. A possible mechanism for this apparent layering was discussed in an earlier image release. Hints of Phoebe's irregular topography can be seen peeking out from the shadows near the lower left and upper left parts of the image. These are real features - possibly crater rims or mountain peaks - that are just being hit by the first light of sunrise on Phoebe. Phoebe's surface shows many large- and small-scale craters. The emerging view of Phoebe is that it might have been part of an ancestral population of icy, comet-like bodies, some of which now reside in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. The images in this mosaic were taken in visible light with the narrow-angle camera at distances ranging from 15,974 kilometers (9,926 miles) to 12,422 kilometers (7,719 miles). The image scale is 74 meters (243 feet) per pixel. Contrast in the image has been enhanced slightly to improve 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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| Description |
Cassini's Farewell to Jupiter |
| Full Description |
Cassini's Farewell to Jupiter On January 15, 2001, 17 days after it passed its closest approach to Jupiter, NASA's Cassini spacecraft looked back to see the giant planet as a thinning crescent. This image is a color mosaic from that day, shot from a distance of 18.3 million kilometers (11.4 million miles). The smallest visible features are roughly 110 kilometers (70 miles) across. The solar phase angle, the angle from the spacecraft to the planet to the Sun, is 120 degrees. A crescent Io, innermost of Jupiter's four large moons, appears to the left of Jupiter. Cassini collected its last Jupiter images on March 22, 2001, as the spacecraft continued the final leg of its journey to a July 1, 2004, appointment with Saturn. 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 Cassini for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona For higher resolution, click here. |
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Hello Again, Jupiter!
| Description |
Hello Again, Jupiter! |
| Full Description |
The brick red, white and brown cloud bands of Jupiter are seen here from Saturn orbit. The Cassini spacecraft's powerful imaging cameras were specially designed to photograph nearby bodies (cosmically speaking) in the Saturn system, but as this image demonstrates, the cameras are actually telescopes. Jupiter is imaged here from more than 11 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, or slightly farther than the average Earth-Saturn distance. As demonstrated by Pale Blue Orb, Earth is only about a pixel across when viewed from Saturn by Cassini. Cassini's parting glance at Jupiter, following the spacecraft's 2000 flyby and gravity assist, is Cassini's Farewell to Jupiter. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 8, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.8 billion kilometers (1.1 billion miles) from Jupiter and at a Sun-Jupiter-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 50 degrees. Scale in the original image was about 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) per pixel. The image was contrast enhanced and magnified by a factor of two and a half to enhance the visibility of cloud features on the planet. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
March 19, 2007 |
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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 |
Jupiter's Magnetosphere Made Visible February 27, 2002 The vast magnetosphere of charged particles whirling around Jupiter, normally invisible, can be imaged by a new type of instrument aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft and is seen here. Three features are sketched in for context: a black circle showing the size of Jupiter, lines of Jupiter's magnetic field, and a cross-section of the Io torus, a doughnut-shaped ring of charged particles that originate from volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io and circle Jupiter at about the orbit of Io. Jupiter's magnetosphere is the largest object in the solar system. If it glowed in wavelengths visible to the eye, it would appear two to three times the size of the Sun or Moon to viewers on Earth. Cassini's ion and neutral camera detects neutral atoms expelled from the magnetosphere, deriving information about their source. This image was taken shortly after Cassini's closest approach to Jupiter, about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) from the planet on Dec. 30, 2000. For more information about the Saturn-bound spacecraft and its observations of Jupiter, see the Cassini home page, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. 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/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 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. For higher resolution, click here. |
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| Description |
Eye on Ganymede |
| Full 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 For higher resolution, click here. |
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Stirred-up Saturn
| Description |
Stirred-up Saturn |
| Full Description |
A great vortex rolls through high southern latitudes on Saturn, whirling twisted contours into the clouds. The ringed planet's uppermost clouds are thought to be composed largely of ammonia ice overlying deeper layers of ammonium hydrosulfide and water clouds. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 13, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2.8 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 143 degrees. The image was obtained using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 938 nanometers. Image scale is 17 kilometers (10 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 |
June 29, 2006 |
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Saturn Aslant
| Description |
Saturn Aslant |
| Full Description |
This oblique view of Saturn shows what may be localized upwellings in the clouds of Saturn's southern hemisphere. Although the contrast is low, a vortex is visible near lower right. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings. The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 938 nanometers. The image was obtained using the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 8, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2.8 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 152 degrees. Image scale is 17 kilometers (10 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 |
June 15, 2006 |
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| Description |
Jupiter Aurora |
| Full Description |
Solar Wind and Aurora at Jupiter March 8, 2001 For higher resolution image, click here. NASA's Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft recently provided scientists an opportunity to watch whether changes in Jupiter's glowing auroras correspond in timing to fluctuations in the solar wind reaching Jupiter. While Cassini passed near Jupiter in December 2000 and January 2001, the Hubble telescope obtained ultraviolet images of the ring-shaped aurora near Jupiter's north pole. The auroras, comparable to Earth's northern lights, are glows caused when charged particles steered by the planet's magnetic field excite gases high in the atmosphere. They give an indication of conditions in the invisible magnetic field. The Hubble images were taken at times when instruments on Cassini were measuring the solar wind approaching Jupiter. The solar wind is a fluctuating stream of particles speeding away from the Sun. The Cassini measurements allowed scientists to extrapolate the properties of the solar wind even closer to Jupiter, where it interacts with the planet's magnetic field. One example of these sets of data is presented in this pair of images. An image of Jupiter's northern aurora, taken by Hubble on Dec. 16, 2000, shows the aurora as a white loop against a blue background in the top frame. The bottom frame presents information that Cassini's plasma spectrometer and magnetometer instruments collected about the solar wind reaching Jupiter at the same time. It gives measurements of the solar wind's speed, density, pressure and magnetic-field direction. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). It is managed for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md. Cassini, on course to reach Saturn in 2004, is a cooperative mission of NASA, ESA and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages Cassini for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. More information about the studies of Jupiter while Cassini passed it available online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby . Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Michigan |
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Bright Bands
| Description |
Saturn's bright equatorial band is the most prominent feature on the planet in this view |
| Full Description |
Cassini's keen vision, with its variety of spectral filters, allows for revealing views of the eastward- and westward-flowing cloud bands that encircle the ringed giant, Saturn. This image was acquired using a spectral filter sensitive to infrared wavelengths where methane in the atmosphere is moderately absorbing. Saturn's bright equatorial band is the most prominent feature on the planet in this view. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on June 15, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 74 degrees. The image scale is 136 kilometers (84 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 . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
July 26, 2005 |
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Psychedelic Saturn
| Description |
Psychedelic Saturn |
| Full Description |
Streamers, swirls and vortices roll across the dynamic face of Saturn. Unlike Earth, where most of the weather is driven by the Sun, Saturn's storms and circulation are driven in part by internal heating. Amazingly, the planet is still contracting (ever so slightly) from its formation, more than 4.5 billion years ago. This gravitational contraction liberates energy in the form of heat. The image was taken in polarized infrared light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 7, 2006, at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 17 kilometers (10 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 12, 2006 |
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Saturn's Streamers
| Description |
Saturn's Streamers |
| Full Description |
The long, gently meandering character of the clouds in this view is a tracer of the generally stable flow of Saturn's atmosphere. The flow is disrupted at turbulent belt-zone boundaries and, here and there, by eddies and vortices. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 11, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 147 degrees. The image was obtained using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 938 nanometers. Image scale is 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit:NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
June 23, 2006 |
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Cassini Jupiter Portrait
| 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 true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, during its closest approach to the giant planet at a distance of approximately 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles). It is the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced, the smallest visible features are approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) across. The mosaic is composed of 27 images: nine images were required to cover the entire planet in a tic-tac-toe pattern, and each of those locations was imaged in red, green, and blue to provide true color. Although Cassini's camera can see more colors than humans can, Jupiter's colors in this new view look very close to the way the human eye would see them. Everything visible on the planet is a cloud. The parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the white ovals, and the large Great Red Spot persist over many years despite the intense turbulence visible in the atmosphere. The most energetic features are the small, bright clouds to the left of the Great Red Spot and in similar locations in the northern half of the planet. These clouds grow and disappear over a few days and generate lightning. Streaks form as clouds are sheared apart by Jupiter's intense jet streams that run parallel to the colored bands. The prominent dark band in the northern half of the planet is the location of Jupiter's fastest jet stream, with eastward winds of 480 kilometers (300 miles) per hour. Jupiter's diameter is eleven times that of Earth, so the smallest storms on this mosaic are comparable in size to the largest hurricanes on Earth. Unlike Earth, where only water condenses to form clouds, Jupiter's clouds are made of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and water. The updrafts and downdrafts bring different mixtures of these substances up from below, leading to clouds at different heights. The brown and orange colors may be due to trace chemicals dredged up from deeper levels of the atmosphere, or they may be byproducts of chemical reactions driven by ultraviolet light from the Sun. Bluish areas, such as the small features just north and south of the equator, are areas of reduced cloud cover, where one can see deeper. For more information, see the Cassini Project home page, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. 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 mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
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Old and New Again
| Description |
Old and New Again |
| Full Description |
Miranda, an icy moon of Uranus (see PIA 00141). Miranda is 470-kilometers-wide (290 miles), nearly as large as Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles wide). The similarities in size and tectonic history on these objects may suggest that remarkably similar physical processes have controlled the separate geological evolutions of these bodies. The images that comprise this mosaic were obtained during Cassini's closest approach to Enceladus on March 9, 2005. The images was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 46 degrees. Resolution in the original images is about 170 meters (560 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 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, This false-color Cassini mosaic of Saturn's moon Enceladus captures in a single view, much of the frigid moon's diverse geology. Cratered terrain dominates most of the scene. The relatively dense accumulation of impact craters implies that this terrain is among the oldest on the moon's surface. Near the bottom of the picture is a crater 20 kilometers wide (12-mile) with a prominent dome-shaped structure in its center. The entire area is transected by a complex web of fractures and faults, some are as narrow as a few hundred meters, others as wide as 5 kilometers (3 miles). The rims and interiors of many craters seem to be sliced by a pervasive system of narrow, parallel grooves into slabs or lanes that typically are a kilometer (about a half-mile) in width. The widely varied appearances of fractures in this region attest to the fact that the surface of Enceladus has been shaped by a long history of intense tectonic activity. The oldest fractures are characterized by a soft, muted appearance and are overprinted by numerous, superimposed impact craters. More recent fractures exhibit topographic relief that is relatively "crisp" in appearance, and they appear to slice through pre-existing impact craters and older fractures. On the right side of the image is a conspicuous and twisted network of ridges and troughs forming a distinct tectonic region on Enceladus. The paucity of craters and the sharp appearance of the topography in this area indicate that this is a relatively young terrain on Enceladus. This view is a composite of images taken using filters sensitive to ultraviolet (centered at 338 nanometers), green (centered at 568 nanometers), and near-infrared (centered at 930 nanometers) light, and has been processed to accentuate subtle color differences. The uppermost surface of these terrains has a relatively uniform grayish color in this picture, suggesting that it is covered with materials of homogeneous composition and grain size. However, many of the fractures reveal a distinctly different color (represented by pale-bluish tones in this false-color image) than the typical surface materials. These "colored" fractures seem to penetrate down to a material that is texturally or compositionally different than most of the material at the surface. One possibility is that the walls of the fractures expose outcrops of solid ice, or ice with different grain-sizes compared to powdery surface materials that blanket flat-lying surfaces. It is also possible that the color identifies some compositional difference between buried ice and ice at the surface. The distinct coloration of "youthful" fracture walls are nearly absent in the oldest fractures. This is consistent with the possibility that the older fractures are covered with a drape of particulate material which mantles nearly all the oldest features on the satellite. In the early 1980's, NASA's Voyager mission to the outer planets revealed a strikingly similar arrangement of terrains on |
| Date |
March 16, 2005 |
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Swirling With Shadows
| Description |
Swirling With Shadows |
| Full Description |
This spectacular image of Saturn's clouds looks obliquely across the high northern latitudes. The Sun is low on the horizon here, making the vertical extent of the clouds easier to see. Cloud bands surrounding the vortex at lower left rise above their surroundings, casting shadows toward the bottom of the image. Some motion blur is apparent in this view. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 938 nanometers on Oct. 30, 2006. Cassini was then at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (700,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 142 degrees. Image scale is 7 kilometers (4 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 |
November 30, 2006 |
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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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Clouds at Dawn
| Description |
Clouds at Dawn |
| Full Description |
Saturn's clouds billow and swirl in the turbulent zones of shear between eastward- and westward-flowing jets. This view looks toward the terminator on Saturn, where night gives way to day. The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 728 nanometers. The image was obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 16, 2006 at a distance of approximately 338,000 kilometers (210,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 67 degrees. Image scale is 17 kilometers (10 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 |
September 20, 2006 |
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Into the Shadow
| Description |
The strands of Saturn's F ring disappear into the darkness of the planet's shadow. Background stars make trails across the sky during the long exposure. |
| Full Description |
The strands of Saturn's F ring disappear into the darkness of the planet's shadow. Background stars make trails across the sky during the long exposure. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 55 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 3, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.4 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 108 degrees. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
February 9, 2007 |
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Drawing the Drapes
| Description |
Drawing the Drapes |
| Full Description |
Prometheus poses here with its latest creation: a dark, diagonal gore in the tenuous material interior to Saturn's F ring. The shepherd moon creates a new gore each time it comes closest to the F ring in its orbit of Saturn, and the memory of previous passes is preserved in the rings's structure for some time afterward. Prometheus is 102 kilometers (63 miles) across. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 20, 2005, at a distance of approximately 499,000 kilometers (310,000 miles) from Saturn and at a high Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 144 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 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 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 |
October 5, 2005 |
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First HiRISE image of Mars
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First HiRISE image of Mars |
| Description |
. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, The first image of Mars by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a story of geologic change in the eastern Bosporos Planum region. Old stream valleys cut into the flanks of a gently sloping mountain range in the center of the image. Layers of smooth-textured deposits have mantled the stream valleys and many impact craters. Wind and sublimation of water or carbon dioxide ice have partially eroded patches of the smooth-textured deposits, leaving behind areas of layered and hummocky terrain. A prominent ridge that extends from the top to the bottom of the image dominates the scene. This ridge formed above a thrust fault, a type of fault that occurs when the surface of a planet is compressed. On planetary surfaces, such fault-related ridges are termed "wrinkle ridges." They are commonly observed on Mars, as well as on Earth's moon and on Venus and Mercury. The wrinkle ridge imaged here is named Ogygis Rupes. This wrinkle ridge has deformed several valleys and impact craters. Throughout the scene, geologically young sand dunes are present within stream valleys and some impact craters. The area is also sprinkled with many small young impact craters, which are distinguished by sharp crater rims and bright or dark halos of ejected material. This image demonstrates how a single HiRISE image can capture a multitude of geologic processes. Image AEB_000001_0000_Red was taken by HiRISE on March 24, 2006. The image is centered at 33.65 degrees south latitude, 305.07 degrees east longitude. It is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 2,493 kilometers (1,549 miles). At this distance the image scale is 2.49 meters (8.17 feet) per pixel, so objects as small as 7.5 meters (24.6 feet) are resolved. In total this image is 49.92 kilometers (31.02 miles) or 20,081 pixels wide and 23.66 kilometers (14.70 miles) or 9,523 pixels long. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:33 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 78 degrees, thus the sun was 12 degrees above the horizon. At an Ls of 29 degrees (with Ls an indicator of Mars' position in its orbit around the sun), the season on Mars is southern autumn. Images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mro [ http://www.nasa.gov/mro ] or http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu [ http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu ]. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov [ http://www.nasa.gov ] |
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Beyond the Limb
| Description |
Turbulent swirls churn in Saturn's atmosphere while the planet's rings form a dazzling backdrop |
| Full Description |
Turbulent swirls churn in Saturn's atmosphere while the planet's rings form a dazzling backdrop. The rings' complex structure is clearly evident in this view. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 15, 2005, through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 727 nanometers at a distance of approximately 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 72 degrees. The image scale is 28 kilometers (17 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 . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
July 28, 2005 |
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Pensive Saturn
| Description |
Pensive Saturn |
| Full Description |
This brooding portrait shows the southwest limb (edge) of the cold gas giant and the thread-like cloud features lurking there. The limb appears smooth, but at the terminator (the boundary between light and dark) and at higher resolution, variations in cloud height can cause shadows that are visible to Cassini (see Such Great Heights). The image was taken in visible, red light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Oct. 30, 2005, at a distance of approximately 401,000 kilometers (249,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 155 degrees. Image scale is 20 kilometers (13 miles) per pixel. The image was contrast enhanced to improve visibility of features in the atmosphere. 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 6, 2005 |
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Bright 'Dust'
| Description |
Bright 'Dust' |
| Full Description |
The fine, dust-sized particles of ice in the F ring and Encke Gap ringlets appear relatively bright, with the rings positioned almost directly between the Cassini spacecraft and the Sun. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 2 degrees above the ringplane. At bottom, the planet 's shadow casts the rings into darkness. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Oct. 24, 2007. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 298,000 kilometers (185,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 152 degrees. Image scale is 14 kilometers (9 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 |
November 22, 2007 |
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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 familiar banded appearance of Jupiter at low and middle latitudes gradually gives way to a more mottled appearance at high latitudes in this striking true color image taken Dec. 13, 2000, by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The intricate structures seen in the polar region are clouds of different chemical composition, height and thickness. Clouds are organized by winds, and the mottled appearance in the polar regions suggests more vortex-type motion and winds of less vigor at higher latitudes. The cause of this difference is not understood. One possible contributor is that the horizontal component of the Coriolis force, which arises from the planet's rotation and is responsible for curving the trajectories of ocean currents and winds on Earth, has its greatest effect at high latitudes and vanishes at the equator. This tends to create small, intense vortices at high latitudes on Jupiter. Another possibility may lie in that fact that Jupiter overall emits nearly as much of its own heat as it absorbs from the Sun, and this internal heat flux is very likely greater at the poles. This condition could lead to enhanced convection at the poles and more vortex-type structures. Further analysis of Cassini images, including analysis of sequences taken over a span of time, should help us understand the cause of equator-to-pole differences in cloud organization and evolution. By the time this picture was taken, Cassini had reached close enough to Jupiter to allow the spacecraft to return images with more detail than what's possible with the planetary camera on NASA's Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. The resolution here is 114 kilometers (71 miles) per pixel. This contrast-enhanced, edge-sharpened frame was composited from images take at different wavelengths with Cassini's narrow-angle camera, from a distance of 19 million kilometers (11.8 million miles). The spacecraft was in almost a direct line between the Sun and Jupiter, so the solar illumination on Jupiter is almost full phase. 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 For higher resolution, click here. |
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Flattened Crescent
| Description |
Flattened Crescent |
| Full Description |
Saturn's low density and fast rotation combine to give it its characteristic oblate shape. The dramatic crescent seen here demonstrates how the ringed planet is much wider at the equator than at the poles. The rings disappear near center into the darkness of the planet's shadow. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 11, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 163 degrees. Image scale is 169 kilometers (105 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 14, 2006 |
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Toward Morning
| Description |
Toward Morning |
| Full Description |
The Cassini spacecraft looks toward daybreak on Saturn through the delicate strands of the C ring. Some structure and contrast is visible in the clouds far below. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 18 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 862 nanometers. The view was acquired on Nov. 4, 2006 at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 162 degrees. Image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
January 23, 2007 |
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