schneiderism

That I am absolutely fascinated by the exploration of Saturn and its moons being conducted by the robotic explorer Cassini is no mystery. There is the fire hose of discovery that Cassini is beaming back to us, discovery that is changing the way we think about our solar system and how it was formed. As if that alone is not enough to justify this mission of space exploration, there is the incredible imagery sent back to blow our minds like the image above of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, shown with the atmosphere of Saturn in the background, captured by Cassini back in 2005, and images like these:

The image above, taken by Cassini on March 12, 2008, provides us great detail of the pock-marked surface of Enceladus. Contrast this image of Enceladus to this one:

This image shows the deep canyon feature of Enceladus and is noticeably missing the impact craters of the previous image. The picture above was snapped by Cassini earlier this month on October 12th.

These images, and more, can be viewed in incredible resolution at The Big Picture.

Definitely a beautiful image of Saturn’s second largest moon, Rhea, with the backdrop of Saturn’s murky atmosphere as Rhea “floats” above it. The black line is Saturn’s ring plane which Cassini has captured essentially head-on, about one degree above the ring plane. This image offers an incredible sense of the scale between Saturn and Rhea.

Found this image here. I have written previously about Saturn’s icy moon Rhea, check it out.

I had already posted about Cassini’s August 11th very close flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and some of the amazing images it captured, but this mosaic warrants posting as well. It is a composite of eight images from Cassini that have been stitched together. The image above is shown in enhanced color and Enceladus would not actually look like this to the human eye. Enhanced color, in this case achieved using a combination of five different lenses, is used to bring out more feature differentiation and detail for analysis, things like the four south polar sulci (which are surface depressions or fissures, and often referred to as Enceladus’ “tiger stripes”) visible in this mosaic. To the human eye Enceladus would look more like below, the starkly stunning image that led my previous post on Enceladus:

More on these images at The Planetary Society

Saturn’s moon Enceladus, pictured above in a full color image from a flyby in 2005 and written about on schneiderism before, received a close visit from the Cassini robotic explorer on August 11th. This flyby allowed Cassini to snap incredible surface detail images. The following are some of the more compelling pictures to come out of this flyby.

Below is an image of “The Mound,” which is the object in the center right of the image which is casting a long shadow to the right. The incredible detail of this photo shows us the complexity of ridges, fissures, and cracks that makes up the surface of Enceladus, looking almost like a close-up image of elephant skin.

One thing that Cassini potentially revealed is evidence of the active venting occurring on Enceladus, venting observed by Cassini on previous missions. The image below appears to show this venting in progress, and in detail. Looking at the center of the image, note the blurred whisps over the whitish fissure feature. Serious speculation suggests that we’re seeing active venting right there:

Cassini was able to get very close to Enceladus, much closer than previous visits, and the images below show the high detail that this made possible. The first was taken by Cassini at a distance of about 1600 miles, the second even closer taken from about 975 miles. Both are incredible.

From 1600 miles:

From 975 miles:

I do not think that we can overstate how incredible it is to be seeing the surface of Enceladus in such rich detail, truly an important and amazing accomplishment. These images are a treasure trove of information for researchers and scientists seeking to learn more about our solar system.

More on Cassini’s August 11th flyby of Enceladus at wanderingspace, and a very informative article on Enceladus can be found at The Planetary Society.

I subscribe to the NASA RSS feed for the Cassini-Huygens mission and just came upon this image taken back on June 10th of this year. This simple black and white image taken by Cassini conveys so much detail about the icy moon. There is the surface, riddled with impact craters and covered in ridges and striations. If you look at the upper right edge of the moon silhoetted against the blackness of space you get a sense of the dimensionality of the moon’s surface. Rhea is the second largest of Saturn’s moons at about 950 miles across, this image definitely gives it presence. Some more detail on Rhea:

• Rhea was discovered in 1642 by Giovanni Cassini, the namesake for the Cassini space probe and the astronomer who also discovered the Saturn moons Iapetus, Dione, and Tethys
• In direct sunlight the temp is as warm as -281°F, and in the shade -364°F
• Rhea has a rocky core that is about one-third of its mass, the rest is water-ice
• It is about 527,000 km from Saturn

The Cassini robot explorer, written about here before, will hit the four year mark on June 30th in the relentless pursuit of its prime mission to explore Saturn and its many moons. After June 30th Cassini is operating in bonus territory, as it was not expected that the probe would last this long or work this well. They call this additional time the “extended mission”. Obviously, everyone is ecstatic as the Cassini mission has been profoundly successful in sending us back invaluable information and images of Saturn (like the one above of Saturn’s rings), as well as the moons Titan, Enceladus, Dione, Tethys, Phoebe and Iapetus. In many ways the discoveries regarding Saturn’s moons has largely overshadowed the many, many findings with regards to Saturn itself.

Following the work of Cassini has been like following your favorite band on tour. Nearly every month the mission team has reported more incredible findings or provided another series of stunning images. This page from the mission website catalogs dozens of events and accomplishments. This year alone Cassini has scheduled over a dozen different flybys to allow the use of the craft’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UIS), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS), and Radio Science Subsystem. Cassini is packed with gear, and it is not only amazing that it all is still working as planned, but that it made it there in the first place. Congratulations to the Cassini-Huygens mission team on the four year anniversary.