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Blog Archive
Pretty picture: Neptune and Triton
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/02/01 12:29 CST | 6 comments
On a lonely evening, what is one to do but to dip into archival space image data and surface with a gorgeous photo of a crescent Neptune and Triton?
Chang'E 2 imaging of Toutatis succeeded beyond my expectations!
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/12/14 05:59 CST | 19 comments
The Chang'E 2 mission flyby of Toutatis succeeded in acquiring images. Oh my goodness, did they succeed. These, in combination with the incredible radar images still being acquired from Goldstone and innumerable optical observations, make Toutatis one of the best-studied asteroids in the solar system.
Watching the slow shift of seasons on Titan
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/06 02:45 CST | 1 comments
A sharp-eyed amateur noticed two images of Titan taken 20 months apart from nearly exactly the same perspective, and they illustrate how the shifting of Saturn's seasons has brought change to Titan's atmosphere.
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.
A Voyager 1 anniversary mosaic
Posted by Björn Jónsson on 2012/09/06 11:58 CDT
Back in 1979 the twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft flew by Jupiter. Some of their images were processed into color images and mosaics that have appeared countless times in books, magazines, on TV and on the Internet. Many of these images and mosaics are spectacular but they were processed more than 30 years ago using computers that are extremely primitive by today's standards. It's possible to get better results by processing the original, raw images from the Voyagers using modern computers and software.
Cure for the blues: processing images of a blue planet
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/09/06 01:00 CDT
I noticed today that I hadn't seen any amateur-processed versions of Voyager's departing shots of Uranus, so I decided to give it a try.
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.
Steins, a jewel in the asteroid belt
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/13 09:00 CDT | 1 comments
A notice of some new names for features on asteroid 2867 Steins inspired me to dig up the data set from the September 5, 2008 Rosetta flyby and explore it to see what it contained.
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.
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: five moons for Cassini
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/08/03 09:57 CDT
Explaining how to combine the red, green and blue images from a recent Cassini image session containing five of Saturn's moons: Janus, Pandora, Enceladus, Mimas and Rhea.
Vesta does a Hyperion impression
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/07/21 06:25 CDT
Maybe it's my own peculiar variant of pareidolia, but every time I see a new image of Vesta I'm reminded of some different other lumpy body in the solar system. In the image released just now by the Dawn team, taken from 10,500 kilometers away, I'm seeing Hyperion.
Summer Sights of the Solar System
Posted by Ray Sanders on 2011/06/07 03:23 CDT
What can you expect to see if you look at the night sky this summer(2011)?
Lots of great stuff in the latest Cassini data release
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/04/13 04:56 CDT
I've got some lovely pictures from Saturn to show you! Every three months, the Cassini mission dumps gigabytes worth of precious Saturn data into the Planetary Data System, and the latest gift came on April 1. This particular pile of data, which was taken between April 1 and June 30, 2010, contains a lot of really terrific moon observations.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/04/01 03:08 CDT
Here's a photo worthy of hanging on the wall: a gorgeous, 4000-pixel-square portrait of the full Moon captured by Rolf Hempel from Germany on the night of the "Supermoon."
Some recent pictures of Saturn's northern storm
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/02/07 04:35 CST
There is a huge storm that's spreading across so much of Saturn that it's been readily visible even from Earth-based telescopes. Over the past couple of days a couple of new images of Saturn have appeared that show just how enormous the storm is today.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/31 03:14 CST
Here's an image I've been meaning to post for months, a new mosaic from Voyager 1 by Ted Stryk of Io crossing Jupiter's terminator as it neared closest approach.
Mars Express' January 2011 Phobos images show how camera works
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/21 05:09 CST
The Mars Express High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) team has just released several images from the most recent series of Phobos flybys to the Mars Express blog.
Two fine color Cassini animations: Prometheus rotating, Tethys and Dione dancing
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/20 11:23 CST
Daniel Macháček has reached into the dark side of Prometheus and pulled out an incredible amount of detail where the potato-shaped moon is illuminated by Saturnshine. He produced an animation that morphs among the three sets of four-filter color images that Cassini snapped during the flyby.
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