| Piú votate - Saturn: the "Ringed Beauty" and His Moons |
Saturn-PIA10513.jpgThe South Pole of Saturn (natural colors; credits: Lunexit)59 visiteCaption NASA:"Long streamers of cloud encircle the South Polar Region of Saturn. Farther poleward, or toward lower left, faint, deeper atmospheric structures lurk beneath the haze.
This image was acquired from a vantage point 74° South of the Planet's equator.
The view was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Oct. 2, 2008 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of IR light centered at 728 nanometers. The view was obtained at a distance of approx. 369.000 Km (such as about 229.000 miles) from Saturn.
Image scale is roughly 19 Km (about 12 miles) per pixel".MareKromium
(4 voti)
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Saturn-PIA10512.jpgLonely Shadow... (possible True Colors; credits: Lunexit)59 visiteCaption NASA:"The shadow of Tethys drifts across the face of Saturn. Nearby, shadows of the Planet's Rings form a darkened band above the Equator. This view looks toward Saturn from a vantage point 63° North of the Equator.
The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini Spacecraft wide-angle camera on Oct. 1, 2008. The view was acquired at a distance of approx 615.000 Km (about 382000 miles) from Saturn.
Image scale is roughly 37 Km (approx. 23 miles) per pixel".MareKromium
(4 voti)
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Saturn-PIA10510.jpgAtmosferic Distortion (natural colors; credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)59 visiteCaption NASA:"Mimas emerges from behind hazy Saturn. The Rings appear (slightly) distorted near the Planet as their image passes through the Upper Atmosphere.
The limb of Mimas (about 396 Km, or approx. 246 miles across) is slightly flattened on the left side by the rim of the large crater Herschel (see also PIA08278).
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the Rings from about 9° above the Ring-Plane. 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 narrow-angle camera on Nov. 30, 2007 at a distance of approx. 1,7 MKM (such as about 1,1 MMs) from Mimas.
Image scale is roughly 10 Km (about 6 miles) per pixel on Mimas".MareKromium
(4 voti)
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MimasandPrometheus-N00121924-N00121943.gif"Space Runners" (GIF-Movie; credits: Dr G. Barca)58 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
(4 voti)
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Enceladus-PIA11119.jpgEnceladus Oct. 9, 2008 Flyby59 visiteCaption NASA:"This image was taken during Cassini's extremely close encounter with Enceladus on Oct. 9, 2008.
The image was taken with the Cassini Spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Oct. 9, 2008, a distance of approx. 40.000 Km (such as about 25.000 miles) from Enceladus.
Image scale is approx. 477 meters (1566 feet) per pixel". MareKromium
(4 voti)
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Dione-PIA10496.jpgThe Bright Canyons of Dione60 visiteCaption NASA:"Dione's defining feature, the fractures on its Trailing Side, shine brilliantly in this Cassini Spacecraft view.
The view was acquired from a position 33° South of the moon's Equator. Lit terrain seen here is on the Trailing Side of Dione (approx. 1123 Km, or about 698 miles across). North is up and rotated 8° to the right.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 11, 2008. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 833,000 kilometers (517,000 miles) from Dione and at a Phase Angle of 67°. Image scale is about 5 Km (a little more than 3 miles) per pixel.
The image was taken with the Cassini Spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 26, 2008 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers.
The view was acquired at a distance of approx. 397.000 Km (about 246.000 miles) from Saturn.
Image scale is roughly 20 Km (about 13 miles) per pixel".MareKromium
(4 voti)
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MimasandPrometheus-N00121933.jpgSpace Encounter: Mimas and Prometheus (1)58 visiteCaption NASA:"N00121933.jpg was taken on October 20, 2008 and received on Earth October 21, 2008.
The camera was pointing toward MIMAS that, at the time, was approx. 1.052.776 Km away.
This image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters and it has not been validated or calibrated." MareKromium
(4 voti)
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MimasandPrometheus-N00121936.jpgSpace Encounter: Mimas and Prometheus (2)57 visiteCaption NASA:"N00121933.jpg was taken on October 20, 2008 and received on Earth October 21, 2008.
The camera was pointing toward MIMAS that, at the time, was approx. 1.054.003 Km away.
This image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters and it has not been validated or calibrated." MareKromium
(4 voti)
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Saturn-RingPlane_cassini_big.jpgAlong the Ring-Plane of Saturn (natural colors; credits: NASA)59 visiteCaption NASA originale:"When Saturn's appendages disappeared in 1612, Galileo did not understand why. Later that century, it became understood that Saturn's unusual protrusions were Rings and that when the Earth crosses the Ring-Plane, the edge-on rings will appear to disappear.
This is because Saturn's Rings are confined to a plane many times thinner, in proportion, than a razor blade. In modern times, the Cassini Spacecraft orbiting Saturn now also crosses Saturn's Ring-Plane. A series of plane crossing images from late February (2006) was dug out of the vast online Cassini raw image archive by interested Spanish amateur Fernando Garcia Navarro.
Pictured above, digitally cropped and set in representative colors, is the striking result. Saturn's thin Ring-Plane appears in blue, bands and clouds in Saturn's Upper Atmosphere appear in gold and dark shadows of the Rings curve across the top of the Gas Giant Planet. Moons appear as bumps in the Rings". MareKromium
(4 voti)
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Saturn-SP-PIA11104.jpgSouthern Turbulence (False Colors; credits: Lunexit)58 visiteCaption NASA:"This detailed Cassini view of the monstrous vortex at Saturn's South Pole provides valuable insight about the mechanisms that power the Planet's Atmosphere.
This view is 10 times more detailed than any previous image of the Polar Vortex. See PIA11103 for a more oblique, wide-angle view that provides context for this close-up.
Previous images revealed an outer ring of high clouds surrounding a Region previously thought to be mostly clear air interspersed with a few puffy clouds that circulate around the center. This new image shows that what looked like puffy clouds at lower resolution are actually vigorous convective storms that form yet another distinct, inner ring. In other words, they are deep convective structures seen through the atmospheric haze. One of the deeper structures (at the 10 o'clock position) has punched through to a higher altitude and created its own little vortex. The ring is similar to the eyewall of a terrestrial hurricane, but much larger. The clear air there is warm, like the eye of a terrestrial hurricane, but on Saturn it is locked to the pole, whereas a terrestrial hurricane drifts around.
Convective structures are small regions of intense upwelling air, but the clear air of the vortex eye indicates that this is generally an area of downwelling. Convection is an important part of the planet's energy budget because the warm upwelling air carries heat from the interior. In a terrestrial hurricane, the convection occurs in the eyewall. Here it seems to occur in the eye as well. The camera filter used for this image captures light at wavelengths where atmospheric gases like Methane are fairly transparent, allowing for detailed views of deep cloud features. Other filters (see PIA09859) use light that is strongly absorbed by Methane gas; the light bounces off the high clouds, making them visible, but gets absorbed before it reaches the low clouds. Such "Methane-Band" images of the South Polar Vortex reveal that the convective clouds do not reach up to the base of the stratosphere, as convective clouds on Earth do. This view was acquired from 56° below the Ring-Plane. The image has been digitally reprojected to show the scene as it would appear to an observer positioned directly above the Pole.
The image was taken with the Cassini Spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 14, 2008, using a combination of two spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of polarized visible light centered at 617 and infrared light centered at 750 nanometers. The view was obtained at a distance of approx. 392.000 Km (243.000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-Spacecraft, or Phase, Angle of 60°.
Image scale is roughly 2 Km (a little more than 1 mile) per pixel".MareKromium
(4 voti)
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Sky-W00049976.jpgBizarre Reflection in the Space of Saturn...86 visiteSembrerebbe, a prima vista, un riflesso generato dalla lente della camera che riprende (una sorta di "Lens Flare"), ma non lo è.
Sembra il residuo luminescente che caratterizza le esplosioni che occorrono in atmosfera rarefatta o nel vuoto, ma si tratta di un'idea davvero insostanziabile e MOLTO esotica.
Forse è solo un vizio dell'immagine oppure - anche se stentiamo a crederlo - un riflesso generato dalle Fontane di Encelado (lontane oltre mezzo milione di Km da CASSINI, al momento dello scatto): un riflesso generato da miliardi di microparticelle di ghiaccio che, illuminate dalla luce di Saturno - e da quella di un Sole molto lontano -, prima di perdersi nello Spazio, sembrano disegnare una sorta di scia di luce.
Chissà...
Caption NASA:"W00049976.jpg was taken on October 09, 2008 and received on Earth October 09, 2008. The camera was pointing toward ENCELADUS that, at the time, was approx. 537.268 Km away.
The image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters".MareKromium
(4 voti)
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Saturn-PIA10486.jpgTwo sides of Saturn's "Hexagon"58 visiteCaption NASA:"Saturn's North Polar Hexagon appears to be a long-lived feature of the Atmosphere, having been spotted in images of Saturn in the early 1980s, again in the 1990s, and then by the Cassini Spacecraft in the past several years.
The persistent nature of the Hexagon in imaging observations implies that it is present throughout Saturn's 29-year seasonal cycle. Two sides of the Hexagon are seen here.
This view was obtained from about 67° above the Equator. The image was taken with the Cassini Spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 25, 2008 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approx. 566.000 Km (about 352.000 miles) from Saturn.
Image scale is roughly 31 Km (about 19 miles) per pixel".MareKromium
(4 voti)
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