Titan and friends from recent official Cassini mission releases.
Shown with Saturn
Shown with Dione against a Saturn and rings nearly edge-on in the background. Looks like a NASA re-interpretation of this image.
With Tethys against more edge-on rings.
Brought (as always) to us from Gordan Ugarkovic.
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And a tiny little “ring shepherd” moon can be seen directly above/left of Dione.
Wow. That is quite a mutual event. Saturn crescent haze about as dramatic as it is ever seen by Cassini but with the addition of an active Enceladus hanging above at such a scale is quite unreal. Color by Gordan Ugarkovic.
We have had our share of global Saturn portraits, but I do believe this is the first taken where the rings are unlit by the sun. An interesting alternate view provided by Gordan Ugarkovic (as usual).
The tiny moon Helene seems to be experiencing some kind of erosion based on new hires images acquired by the Cassini mission in orbit around Saturn. If this is true, this would be quite a mystery considering the moon’s tiny mass and almost total lack of any gravitational ability to shape it’s own surface. Surely this must be coming from external forces such as ring particles being dumped on the surface in one area and then slowly being shaken downslope by small impacts over a very long time. Maybe?
Another color composite by Gordan Ugarkovic.
And a bonus Helene crescent image with posterization effects removed by Wanderingspace.
Taken in January of 2011 this raw image reveals Enceladus actively spraying the heavens from its southern geysers.
We may have a new best of Cassini shots with this one. The color composite was executed by Ian Regan who was the creator of another Cassini favorite here at wanderingspace.
CASSINI MISSION from Chris Abbas on Vimeo.
Gorgeous idea — taking the raw images from the Cassini mission and making a long flip-book style movie. Leaving in the flaws and noise of raw images happens to add a nice stylistic touch to the overall feeling of the film. The nature of multiple images taken by the spacecraft often with large and small gaps in time coincidentally makes some engaging jumpy into smooth segments.
Hoping the Cassini team can find another opportunity to zip by Iapetus again before the end of the mission. Thus far, there are no plans.
The Saturnian moon Mimas wanders into the frame of this shot which was primarily observing the active geysers on Enceladus.
This is the best lit image taken of the plumes of Enceladus thus far by Cassini. The moon is lit from the front by Saturnshine and the plumes are being back-lit by the Sun directly behind. A perfect alignment for revealing active geysers on a small moon.
This image is taken directly from the Cassini raw images directory. Sometimes they are perfect with no need for adjustment or correction. The best detail is the subtle haze of the geysers spewing on the right edge. Taken April 26 from 987,839 kilometers away.
