Hyperion...

Hyperion, moon of Saturn.  From Cassini, via APOD, of course:

Lakes With Ice – on Titan!?!

The intrepid Cassini robot explorer is still zipping around the Saturnian system, returning reams and reams of great science data.  One product of recent close passes to Saturn's moon Titan is high-resolution radar images of the Titanian surface (one of these is at right).

The bright areas on this image are from ground areas covered with frozen methane “ice”; these areas reflect radar well.  The dark areas are suspected of being liquid methane “lakes”.  Some of these are quite large, about like the U.S. Great Lakes.  But look closely, and you'll see some lake-shaped areas that are of intermediate brightness.  Scientists think these are lakes of liquid methane that are partially covered with frozen methane ice.

Titan is one of the most fascinating objects in our solar system.  The surface gravity is just 0.14g, or about 1/7th of Earth's.  The atmospheric pressure is about 50% higher than Earth's, but it's very cold (just above -300°F) and it has no oxygen.  Even so, biologists think that its at least possible that there might be life on Titan.  I would love to see a Curiosity-style rover exploring Titan...

Helene...

Helene is one of the tiny moons of Saturn.  In 2011, Cassini made a close fly-by of Helene, and two of the images are here combined in an anaglyph to give a beautiful stereo view of the tiny satellite.  Put on your blue/red glasses and have a look-see!  Via APOD, of course...

The Dark Side of Saturn's Rings...

Taken by the intrepid Cassini robotic explorer.  Via APOD, of course:

Saturn's Hexagon...

Here's a nice discussion of the strange gaseous hexagon at the north pole of Saturn, as imaged by the awesome Cassini probe...

Saturn...

The Cassini team created this composite from over 60 images filtered from infrared, red, and violet ranges:

Saturn, Titan, and the Rings...

APOD presents this beautiful photo taken by the Cassini probe, still orbiting Saturn and studying the Saturnian system. 

Helene...

One of the Saturnian moons that's in a Lagrange point.  Imaged by Cassini, and brought to us by APOD, of course...

Ice-Chewing Robot for Europa...

Inventor Bill Stone is building a robot specifically designed for the task of drilling through the ice “crust” of the Saturnian moon Europa.  It involves 5,000 watt lasers and fiber optics.  Awesome!

Can You Guess What This Is?

Here's a clue: it's via APOD...

Don't know?  They're the mysterious hexagonal clouds around the north pole of Saturn...

Four Moons...

The image at right shows four moons of Saturn in a single frame.  It was, of course, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, still collecting bucketloads of science data way out there in the frigid Saturnian system.  This image comes to us courtesy of APOD.  As always, click to enlarge...

A Quintet of Moons...

Cassini is still hard at work in the Saturnian system, returning scads of good science data every day.  The photo at right (click to enlarge, as always) was taken recently, and shows five moons of Saturn all in one shot.  From left to right: Janus, Pandora, Enceladus, Mimas, and half of Rhea.  Awesome!

Helene...

Helene is one of the Trojan moons of Saturn.  The Cassini robotic explorer recently captured this image of it (as always, click to enlarge).  APOD has it in the form of a 3-D (anaglyph) image. 

Seven years into its mission, Cassini is still going strong – a wonderful example of what NASA could be doing instead of wasting money on purposeless manned space flight...

Storm on Saturn...

Photo by the intrepid robotic explorer Cassini, which is still collecting science every day as it whips around in the Saturnian system.  APOD featured this photo today...

Saturn's Strange Hexagon...

Saturn's jet stream blows in a strange hexagonal pattern, captured here by Cassini. The hexagon is basically a long-lived weather phenomenon ringing the planet's north pole. Read more here.

Enceladus Flyby...

Fantastic photos from yesterday's flyby of Enceladus, by Cassini.  Awesome!

Saturn at Equinox...

A spectacular photo collection, taken by Cassini in the Saturn system.

There's more science in this web page than in the entire history of the International Space Station.

For less than 1% of the cost...

Cassini Spots Ring Bumps...

Everything I've ever read about the rings of Saturn says that they are remarkably thin and sparse collections of dust and pebbles, swirling around Saturn in the same plane as the Saturn's satellites. Now I learn that there are mile-high “bumps” in the rings that were predicted by computer models of the rings, but never seen.

Until now, that is. Cassini took pictures!

Backlit Saturn...

Cassini – NASA's robotic explorer in orbit around Saturn – recently traveled into Saturn's shadow, where it took this spectacular photograph (click to enlarge). From Cassini's perspective, the sun is behind Saturn. This causes the bright ring around the edges of the planet, where the sunlight “leaks” through the thinnest parts of Saturn's atmosphere. The rings are all backlit by the hidden sun, providing the best view of them that I've ever seen.

Cassini was launched almost 12 years ago, and has been in orbit around Saturn for the past 4 and a half years. During that entire time, it has been steadily returning solid science results. Our understanding of Saturn and its moons has been vastly increased by Cassini's observations, at a cost of roughly 1/60th that of the International Space Station (best known for its malfunctioning toilets and utter lack of useful contributions to anything except NASA's budget).

Titan Movie

With virtually no public awareness, much less fanfare, the Cassini mission to Saturn continues to return excellent science — day after day after day. Today there’s a new movie of Titan, the intriguing giant moon of Saturn. If you click on the picture at right, you’ll get the large (6MB) GIF movie. It was taken in a combination of the visual and infrared spectrums:

From the official Cassini-Huygens site:

This movie of Titan shows data taken with Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer during the last three flybys of Titan. The flybys took place on Oct. 28, 2005, Dec. 26, 2005, and Jan. 15, 2006.

These false-color images were taken at wavelengths of 1.6 microns shown in blue, 2.01 microns in green and 5 microns in red.

The viewing geometry of the December flyby is roughly on the opposite hemispheres of the flybys in October and January. There are several important features shown by the movie. First, the globe of Titan exhibits two major types of terrain. One is very bright, and a darker one seems to be concentrated near the equator. Titan also has two very bright regions, the large one known as Tui Reggio, and the other as Hotei Arcus. These regions are thought to be surface deposits, probably of volcanic origin, and may be water and/or carbon dioxide frozen from the vapor. The December flyby data show that the western margins of Tui Reggio have a complex flow-like structure consistent with eruptive phenomena. The reddish feature at the south pole is Titan¿s south polar cloud system, which was very bright during the December flyby. During the October and January flybys it is barely visible, indicating that the atmosphere over titan’s south pole is very dynamic.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona.

It’s just amazing what this “flying Volkswagen” is doing!