NASA: Cassini Spacecrafy Checking in on Saturn - The Boston Globe - Part 1

Posted by Ricardo Marcenaro | Posted in | Posted on 13:04





In orbit around Saturn, NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this image of Saturn's moon Tethys with its prominent Odysseus Crater slipping behind Saturn's largest moon Titan. Tethys (1,062 km, or 660 mi across) is more than twice as far from Cassini than Titan (5,150 km, or 3,200 mi across). Tethys is 2.2 million km (1.4 million mi) from Cassini, where Titan is only about 1 million km (621,000 mi) away. This image was obtained with the a narrow-angle camera on November 26, 2009. Image scale is 6 km (4 mi) per pixel on Titan and 13 km (8 mi) per pixel on Tethys. (NASA/JPL/SSI) 

Saturn's tiny moon Mimas - only 396 km (246 mi) across - seen before part of the upper atmosphere of Saturn on November 26, 2008. Cassini was approximately 915,000 km away from Mimas. (NASA/JPL/SSI)

On February 13, 2010 Cassini approached closer to Mimas at approximately 70,000 km away, Saturn's limb and upper atmosphere visible in the background. (NASA/JPL/SSI) 

In this view captured by Cassini on its closest-ever flyby of Saturn's moon Mimas, large Herschel Crater - 130 km (80 mi) wide - dominates the scene. Cassini came within about 9,500 km (5,900 mi) of Mimas on Feb. 13, 2010. (NASA/JPL/SSI)

Cassini's February 2010 encounter with tiny moon Calypso yielded this incredibly detailed view. Irregularly shaped Calypso (30 x 23 x 14 km) is one of two Trojan moons that travel in the same orbit of the larger moon Tethys, traveling ahead and behind. Calypso's smooth surface does not appear to retain the record of intense cratering that most of Saturn's other moons possess. The image was taken on February 13th, 2010 at a distance of approximately 21,000 km (13,000 mi) from Calypso. (NASA/JPL/SSI)

The Cassini spacecraft captured this natural color view of Saturn almost a month after the planet's August 2009 equinox. The shadow cast on the planet by the rings remains narrow. Mimas can be seen as a speck at lower left. Image obtained with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on September 4th, 2009 from approximately 2.7 million km (1.7 million mi) away from Saturn. (NASA/JPL/SSI)  

Seen on July 26, 2009, Saturn's moon Enceladus - 500km (310 mi) across - lies approximately 200,000 km away from Cassini. (NASA/JPL)  

Saturn's tiny moon Helene, seen here by Cassini on March 03, 2010. Discovered in 1980, Helene is only 35 km (28 mi) wide. (NASA/JPL/SSI)




While we humans carry on with our daily lives down here on Earth, perhaps stuck in traffic or reading blogs, or just enjoying a Springtime stroll, a school-bus-sized spacecraft called Cassini continues to gather data and images for us - 1.4 billion kilometers (870 million miles) away. Over the past months, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has made several close flybys of Saturn's moons, caught the Sun's reflection glinting off a lake on Titan, and has brought us even more tantalizing images of ongoing cryovolcanism on Enceladus. Collected here are a handful of recent images from the Saturnian system.


Clic The Boston Globe link to see more
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/checking_in_on_saturn.html





  








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