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By Emily Lakdawalla




A trio of pretty Cassini pics

Mar. 19, 2010 | 12:19 PDT | 19:19 UTC
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It's been a little while since I posted any Cassini pictures just because they were pretty, so here's a few recent ones, produced by amateurs from the images available on the Cassini raw images website.

Tethys, Mimas, and the rings of Saturn
Tethys, Mimas, and the rings of Saturn
Cassini captured this picture-postcard view of the moons Mimas (top) and Tethys (bottom) floating near the rings on March 15, 2010. Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI / color composite by Sean Walker
Titan's ring
Titan's ring
Cassini viewed Titan from its nightside to capture this view of its atmosphere on March 16, 2010. The image is a composite of red, green, and ultraviolet-filter images; the ultraviolet image emphasizes the high-altitude haze, producing the blue ring floating high above the rest of the atmosphere. Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI / color composite by Gordan Ugarkovic
Titan and Dione
Titan and Dione
Dione passed in front of Titan on March 12, 2010 as Cassini snapped photos. Late in 2009, Cassini planners started commanding the spacecraft to take these "mutual event" movies not through a clear filter but instead through red, green, and blue filters sequentially; the raw data exists to produce an animation of Dione passing across Titan in color. Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI / color composite by Emily Lakdawalla

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Comments

What's the halo around Tethys? Has something - passing through Enceladus' fountains - deposited a film on the camera lens?
#1 - Steve Schaper - 03/19/2010 - 17:27
That's an artifact of the way the images are compressed before being posted to the raw images website. They're converted to JPEG format when they are posted. JPEG is a "lossy" format, in which the image isn't represented as the actual values of each pixel, but instead as a bunch of overlapping functions. JPEG does a very good job of compressing images where the variations from one pixel to the next are smooth, but when there are sharp boundaries between areas of high pixel value and low pixel value, like where a bright moon is seen against black space, there can be those ghosting or halo effects. This is actually intentional on the Cassini mission's part -- by posting these images with JPEG compression, fine detail and some data quality is lost. The images are still quite good enough for the public to play with, but it's not a good idea to use them for scientific interpretation. That helps the science team enjoy their proprietary data period until the data is formally archived and released to the Planetary Data System, which happens six to nine months after it is first acquired.
#2 - Emily - 03/19/2010 - 22:01
Nutrino reflection
I think nutrino reflection phenomena occurs.
Or any other dark particle reflection phenomena occurs.

Its very rare. But in the icy planet , weak nutrino would destroy or reflection, I suppose.
#3 - Kim - 10/13/2010 - 00:27
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