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A huge color global view of Dione
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/10/23 02:33 CDT
From the Cassini data archives comes a huge (5000 pixels square!) color image of Saturn's icy moon Dione, worth investigating from both near and far.
DPS 2012, Tuesday: Titan's surface
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/10/17 10:22 CDT | 4 comments
Tuesday morning at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting featured talks on the surface composition and landforms on Titan, including lakes and "hot cross buns."
Happy Cassini PDS Release Day!
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/10/08 01:00 CDT | 2 comments
It's a quarterly feast day for me: the day that the Cassini mission delivers three months' worth of data to NASA's Planetary Data System. Here's a few images processed from the October 1, 2012 data release.
Sturzstroms on Saturn’s Moon Iapetus
Posted by Kelsi Singer on 2012/10/01 04:31 CDT
Long-runout landslides (sturzstroms) are found across the Solar System. They have been observed primarily on Earth and Mars, but also on Venus, and Jupiter’s moons Io and Callisto. I have just published a paper about sturzstroms on Iapetus.
A couple of gems from the archives
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/09/10 11:07 CDT | 2 comments
We're still working on migrating content from the old to the new website. This week, that means I am looking, one by one, through some great amateur-processed space images.
What's Up in the Solar System in September 2012
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/31 04:17 CDT | 4 comments
It's an active time in interplanetary exploration! Curiosity has begun roving Mars, and Opportunity's not wasting any time either. Dawn has just departed Vesta and begun the more than two-year cruise to Ceres. Juno is in the middle of a big deep-space maneuver, setting up next year's Earth flyby.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/22 07:01 CDT | 8 comments
A pretty picture of Cassini's current view of Saturn.
Daphnis cruises through the Keeler Gap
Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/08/16 11:03 CDT
A recent series of ring images by the Cassini spacecraft reveal Saturn's tiny moon Daphnis cruising through the Keeler Gap.
What's up in the Solar System in August 2012
Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/08/03 06:03 CDT
Welcome to the monthly roundup of our solar system's envoy of electronic explorers! All eyes are on Curiosity as it approaches Mars this weekend. Who will lend support at the Red Planet?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/20 02:40 CDT
Just a pretty global view of one of Saturn's flock of icy moons, newly processed from archival data by Gordan Ugarkovic.
Pretty picture: Halo on a halo?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/15 05:21 CDT | 6 comments
An interesting set of images of Titan that Cassini took recently shows a peculiar cap at Titan's south pole.
Posted by Jay Pasachoff on 2012/06/07 04:44 CDT | 3 comments
A transit of Venus as seen from Jupiter may be observed by Hubble on September 20 and a transit of Venus as seen from Saturn will be observed by Cassini on December 21.
Video: Saturn makes its own drama (with a little help)
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/05/22 05:43 CDT | 5 comments
The apparently simple device of running Cassini images together like a flipbook makes for a dramatic movie, especially with the help of well-timed musical cues.
Methone, an egg in Saturn orbit?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/05/21 02:58 CDT | 8 comments
Cassini obtained its first high-resolution images of Methone on May 20, 2012. Methone is one of the smallest regular moons of Saturn, having a diameter of only about 3 kilometers. It was the first moon that Cassini discovered, very early in Cassini's mission at Saturn, in 2004.
Pretty pictures from Cassini's recent Dione flyby
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/05/04 05:44 CDT
Cassini performed its last of three close encounters with Enceladus for 2012 two days ago, and followed the flyby with some spectacular images of Dione.
Titan, Dead or Alive? A Debate
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/05/02 10:32 CDT
A lively discussion and debate between planetary polymaths Ralph Lorenz and Jeffrey Moore about Titan, hosted by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, moderated by David Grinspoon.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/04/20 01:01 CDT | 2 comments
I enthused about these Helene images the first time they came down from Cassini, and then forgot about them, and then was thrilled anew a couple of weeks ago when Daniel Macháček posted his version, processed from data published by the Cassini imaging team on April 1.
Pretty pictures from Cassini's weekend flybys of Enceladus and Tethys
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/04/16 03:11 CDT
Cassini flew past both Enceladus and Tethys on April 14. Here's a cool animation of its approach to Enceladus' plumes, and a pretty global picture of Tethys.
Pretty picture: Janus and Saturn
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/04/04 12:15 CDT
In the last few days as it's rounded periapsis in its current orbit of Saturn, Cassini has taken a lot of great photos of Saturn's moons. One series of photos was taken from pretty close to Janus, a moon about a third the diameter of Enceladus that orbits between the F and G rings. And among those, several were taken with the moon sitting in front of Saturn.
Notes from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference: Making Cassini's radar images prettier
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/26 02:12 CDT
One of the more exciting talks last week was given by Antoine Lucas about his work with Oded Aharonson "denoising" Cassini radar images of Titan. Cassini's radar images are superior to the camera photos in revealing fine details and topography on Titan's surface, but they do suffer from a random noise component that makes the pictures look snowy. Antoine and Oded have developed a method for removing much of this noise.
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