Saturn: the "Ringed Beauty" and His Moons
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Saturn_Titan-PIA09856.jpgFather and Son (natural colors; credits: NASA)72 visiteCaption NASA:"The Cassini Spacecraft captured this color portrait of Saturn and Titan only a few minutes before the haze-enshrouded moon slipped behind the planet's enormous bulk. The view looks toward the sunlit side of the Rings from about 5 below the Ring-Plane.
The Northern Hemisphere of Titan presently appears darker than the Southern, a feature presumed to be a seasonal effect.
Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 29, 2008 at a distance of approx. 2,3 MKM (such as about 1,4 MMs) from Titan and approx. 1 MKM (about 630.000 miles) from Saturn.
Image scale is roughly 135 Km (about 84 miles) per pixel on Titan and approx. 61 Km (about 38 miles) per pixel on Saturn".MareKromium
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Saturn_and_Companions-EB-LXTT.jpgDeep Space... (Natural Colors; credits: Elisabetta Bonora - Lunexit Team)78 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
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Saturn_and_Friends-EB-MF-LXTT.jpgSaturn and some "Friends" (Natural Colors; credits for the additional process. and color.: Elisabetta Bonora and Marco Faccin - Lunexit Team)174 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
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Saturn_and_Moons-N00173684_-83-82-MF-LXTT.jpgTrue Planets (Absolute Natural Colors; credits for the additional process. and color.: Dr Marco Faccin - Lunexit Team)188 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
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Saturn_s Clouds-HST-PIA01464_modest.jpgSaturn's Clouds from Hubble Space Telescope65 visiteCaption NASA originale:"This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the ringed planet Saturn shows a rare storm that appears as a white arrowhead-shaped feature near the planet's equator. The storm is generated by an upwelling of warmer air, similar to a terrestrial thunderhead. The east-west extent of this storm is equal to the diameter of the Earth (about 7,900 miles). Hubble provides new details about the effects of Saturn's prevailing winds on the storm. The new image shows that the storm's motion and size have changed little since its discovery in September, 1994".
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Saturn_s Clouds-V1&V2-PIA01375_modest.jpgSaturn's Clouds from Voyager 1 and Voyager 269 visiteCaption NASA originale:"This comparison shows Saturns north temperate region as viewed on Nov. 5, 1980, by Voyager 1 (left) and Aug. 21, 1980, by its sister craft, Voyager 2, from a range of 5.000.000 Km; the large bright oval feature in the lower right of each frame measures about 2.500 Km. The largest bright feature in the Voyager 1 photograph extends about 7.500 Km from north to south. These giant storms lie within one of the strongest westward-flowing currents observed in the atmosphere, with wind speeds of about 20 mt p/s".
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Saturn_s Clouds-V1-PIA00026_modest.jpgSaturn's Clouds from Voyager 170 visiteCaption NASA originale:"Two brown ovals, at right, some 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) across, were found at approximately 40` and 60` latitude in Saturn's northern hemisphere by Voyager l. The photo was taken on November 7, 1980, from a range of 7.500.000 Km. The polar oval (upper right) has a structure similar to the Saturn red spot located in the southern polar latitudes".
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Saturn_s Clouds-V1-PIA00027_modest.jpgSaturn's Clouds from Voyager 179 visitecaption NASA originale:"This image was obtained on November 10, 1980 when Voyager 1 was at a distance of 3,500,000 kilometers (2,200,000 miles) from Saturn. The smallest resolved features in this photograph are 65 kilometers (40 miles) in diameter. Images with similar resolution indicate that Saturn's circulation is somewhat different from Jupiter's. The maximum westward velocities seen on Saturn are located in the middle of the darker regions, while on Jupiter they are located at the poleward interface between belts and zones".
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Saturn_s Clouds-V2-PIA01379_modest.jpgSaturn's Clouds from Voyager 267 visiteCaption NASA originale:"A vortex, or large atmospheric storm, is visible at 74` north latitude in this color composite of Voyager 2 Saturn images obtained on Aug. 25, 1980, from a range of about 1.000.000 Km. This particular storm system seems to be one of the few large-scale structures in Saturn's polar region, which otherwise is dominated by much smaller-scale features suggesting convection. The darker, bluish structure (upper right) oriented east to west strongly suggests the presence of a jet stream at these high latitudes".
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Saturn_s Clouds-V2-PIA01958_modest.jpgSaturn's Clouds from Voyager 267 visiteCaption NASA originale:"In this Voyager 2 observation of Saturns northern mid-latitudes is seen a strangely curled cloud attached by a thin ribbon to the bright white cloud region to the north. The cloud has been monitored for seven rotations around the planet. It appears to be forming a closed loop. Other discrete clouds are seen to the east. Also evident is the ribbonlike structure at 47 north latitude in the white cloud region. The spacecraft took this image from a distance of about 9.300.000 Km".
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Saturn_s F-Ring+Mimas-PIA06471_modest.jpgLonely Mimas...75 visiteCaption NASA originale:"Mimas swings around Saturn, seeming to gaze down at the planet's splendid rings. The outermost, narrow F ring is visible here and exhibits some clumpy structure near the bottom of the frame. The shadow of Saturn's southern hemisphere stretches almost entirely across the rings. Mimas is 398 Km (247 miles) wide.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on August 15, 2004, at a distance of 8,8 MKM (5.5 million miles) from Saturn".
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Saturn_s Rings in color - PIA06114_modest.jpgSaturn's Rings in natural colors from Cassini-Huygens75 visiteCaption NASA originale:Saturn's faintly banded atmosphere is delicately colored and its threadbare rings cross their own shadows in this marvelous natural color view from Cassini.
The planet and its rings would nearly fill the space between Earth and the Moon. Yet, despite their great breadth, the rings are a few meters thick and in some places, very translucent. In this image, we can see through the C-Ring, which is closest to Saturn, and through the Cassini division, the 4.800-Km wide gap that arcs across the top of the image and separates the optically thick B-Ring from the A-Ring. The part of the atmosphere seen through the gap appears darker and more bluish due to scattering at blue wavelengths by the cloud-free upper atmosphere.
The different colors in Saturn's atmosphere are due to particles whose composition is yet to be determined.
The image was obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on July 30, 2004, at a distance of 7.6 MKM from Saturn".
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