Saturn: the "Ringed Beauty" and His Moons
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Pan-PIA08320.jpgPan through the Rings53 visiteCaption originale:"Saturn's small, walnut-shaped moon, Pan, embedded in the Planet's Rings.
This image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 29, 2006, at a distance of approximately 209.000 Km (about 130,000 miles) from Pan.
The image scale is approx. 1 Km per pixel".
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Pan-PIA08857.jpgPan53 visiteCaption NASA:"Pan is seen in this color view as it sweeps through the Encke Gap with its attendant ringlets. As the lemon-shaped little moon orbits Saturn, it always keeps its long axis pointed along a line toward the Planet. From this vantage point, the dark side of the moon is visible.
This view looks toward Pan (26 Km or 16 miles across) within the Encke Gap (325 Km or 200 miles wide), on the unlit side of the Rings, and from an inclination of about 33° above the Ring-Plane.
Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 16, 2006 at a distance of approx. 779.000 Km (about 484.000 miles) from Pan and at a Sun-Pan-spacecraft, or phase angle of 83°.
Image scale is roughly 5 Km (a little more than 3 miles) per pixel".MareKromium
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Pan-PIA09911.jpgAlmost invisible...57 visiteCaption NASA:"Pan coasts down its private highway within the Encke Gap.
The process by which Pan (about 28 Km, or 17 miles across) maintains the gap, clearing the neighborhood around its orbit, is believed to be similar to the way that planets clear gaps in debris disks around young stars. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the Rings from about 11° above the Ring-Plane.
The limb of Saturn is seen through the Rings, at the upper left.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini Spacecraft narrow-angle camera on April 24, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approx. 1,3 MKM (such as about 784.000 miles) from Pan.
Image scale is roughly 8 Km (approx. 5 miles) per pixel".MareKromium
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Pan-PIA11652-1.jpgPan and its Shadow (Natural Colors; credits: Lunar Explorer Italia)55 visiteCaption NASA:"Wendy Darling famously helped Peter Pan catch his shadow, and now Cassini captures the shadow of another Pan: Saturn's 30-kilometer (19-mile) wide moon inhabiting the Encke Gap.
In the center of this image, the shadow of Pan is a short streak thrown over the edge of the A-Ring where Pan travels its path through the Encke Gap. A second version of this image has been included to focus on Pan's shadow. The image has been scaled to three times its original size and cropped as shown in the inset.
One of the happy results of Saturn's 29-year revolution around the Sun is the changing elevation of the Sun seen from the Planet, and the changing elevation of the shadows of the Rings and moons that the Sun's apparent motion brings.
As Saturn approaches Equinox, the angle at which the ringplane is inclined away from the Sun will continue to decrease until August 2009, when Equinox will bring about an alignment of the plane containing the rings with the rays of the Sun. Only around the time of Equinox is a moon's shadow cast on the Rings rather than the Planet. Between now and Equinox in August, the shadows cast by the moons on the Rings will grow longer with time".MareKromium
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PanandPrometheus-PIA10468.jpgGravitational Disturbances54 visiteCaption NASA:"This mosaic of two Cassini images shows Pan and Prometheus creating features in nearby Rings.
Pan (approx. 28 Km, or about 17 miles across), in the Encke Gap at left, is trailed by a series of edge waves in the outer boundary of the gap. Prometheus (approx. 86 Km, or about 53 miles across at its widest point) just touches the inner edge of Saturn's F-Ring at right, and is followed by a series of dark channels in the Ring, which were caused by the passage of Prometheus through the F-Ring on previous orbits.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 3° above the Ring-Plane. The images were taken in visible light with the Cassini Spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 15, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approx. 1,2 MKM (746.000 miles) from Pan and Prometheus.
Image scale is roughly 7 Km (about 5 miles) per pixel on both moons".MareKromium
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Pandora-091227-W00062229-31.jpgPandora perhaps? (an Image-Mosaic in False Colors, by Elisabetta Bonora - Lunexit Team)54 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
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Pandora-N00028964~0.jpgPandora: the "Prisoner" and yet the "Guardian" of the Rings55 visiteUn frame molto suggestivo per un'altra "luna pastore" - Pandora - che in questa immagine, a causa della particolare prospettiva, sembra essere stata "ingabbiata" dagli Anelli. In realtà - e da un punto di vista squisitamente fisico - semmai è vero il contrario: è Pandora che concorre nel "modellare" e "mantenere in equilibrio" e, dunque, nell'"imprigionare", in una serie coordinata di abbracci gravitazionali, i detriti che formano gli Anelli del Gigante!
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Pandora-N00039277.jpgPandora, from about 52.000 Km53 visiteOriginal NASA caption:"N00039277.jpg was taken on September 05, 2005 and received on Earth September 06, 2005. The camera was pointing toward PANDORA at approximately 51.749 Km away".
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Pandora-N00042197.jpgPandora?69 visiteOriginal caption:"N00042197.jpg was taken on October 29, 2005 and received on Earth October 30, 2005. The camera was pointing toward PANDORA at approximately 455.248 Km away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and IR1 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated".
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Pandora-N00042203.jpgPandora and...?53 visiteOriginal caption:"N00042203.jpg was taken on October 29, 2005 and received on Earth October 30, 2005. The camera was pointing toward PANDORA at approximately 459.147 Km away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and UV3 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated".
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Pandora-N00111362.jpgPandora?53 visiteCaption NASA:"N00111362.jpg was taken on May 30, 2008 and received on Earth May 31, 2008. The camera was pointing toward PANDORA, and the image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated".MareKromium
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Pandora-N00125271.jpgIn the Space of Saturn...54 visiteLa rubricazione NASA di questo frame riportava solo la dicitura "Sky". A noi, invece, sembra di vedere la piccola luna Pandora, in alto a Dx (la riconosciamo sia a causa della sua forma "a fuso", sia in ragione del cratere che si trova proprio sulla sua punta - ivi: Polo Nord, rispetto all'Osservatore).
Certo, potremmo anche sbagliarci, però...MareKromium
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