The Planetary Society Blog
By Emily Lakdawalla
Four moons, Saturn, and the rings in one animation
Jan. 6, 2006 | 13:48 PST | 21:48 UTC
The other day I got excited about an animation that Cassini captured of three moons dancing with each other. Well, that animation has been surpassed. While updating the Cassini, Day By Day pages I came across another set of raw images that includes Epimetheus and the rings crossing in front of Titan and Dione and eventually behind Saturn just as Pandora pops into view. Although I have a long list of other things I should be working on, I couldn't resist animating the frames. Pretty cool stuff! Mutual event of Titan, Epimetheus, and Dione, plus Pandora and SaturnThis animation represents 29 frames captured by Cassini on January 5, 2006 and shows Epimetheus passing in front of Titan and Dione, below Saturn's rings. A faint star also pops into view during the animation, and at the end, Pandora is visible in front of the rings and the disk of Saturn. Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI / Emily Lakdawalla |
One important thing to note about these animations -- much of the "motion" is in fact due to the motion of the Cassini spacecraft itself. In this animation, Cassini's view is staying locked on Epimetheus. To stay locked on Epimetheus, Cassini rotates in place while it's traveling on its own path around Saturn. That rotation is part of what makes the other stuff in the picture seem to move so fast, and also what makes the moons seem to cross each other's paths so much. Also, of course, the time is sped up a lot. The images for these animations are typically captured roughly a minute apart, but they're shown here with only half a second between each of them.
Comments
This comment form is powered by GentleSource Comment Script. It can be included in PHP or HTML files and allows visitors to leave comments on the website.
| 
