Cassini Gallery

Saturn silhouetted, Cassini image

Saturn silhouetted. Cassini spacecraft image of Saturn and its ring system with the Sun directly behind. The view revealed two previously unknown rings. One, associated with the orbits of the moons Janus and Epimetheus, lies in between the outer edge of the bright main rings and the thin grey/brown G Ring. The other, associated with the orbit of the moon Pallene, lies just inside the broad and diffuse outer E ring. Earth is seen as a bright dot at the ten o'clock position between the bright main rings and the G Ring. This is a composite of 165 images taken at infrared, visible light and ultraviolet wavelengths by the Cassini spacecraft on 15th September 2006, while it was around 2.2 million kilometres from Saturn

© Nasa/Jpl/Space Science Institute/Science Photo Library

Saturns moon Tethys

June 29, 2007 - The cold, cratered landscape of Saturn's moon Tethys shines in stark relief in this crescent view.
Aside from its obvious aesthetic beauty, this particular Cassini mosaic was obtained mainly to understand important details about how the surface of Tethys (1, 071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) reflects light at high phase angles (the sun-Tethys-spacecraft viewing angle). The beautiful interplay of light with surface topographic features is an important factor in this regard. The surface is heavily cratered, and at this oblique angle the craters give the surface a highly scalloped appearance.
Unlike some high-resolution crescent views of Saturn's moons, this image truly gives Tethys the appearance of being composed of ice and frost. There appear to be numerous sun glints sparkling across the surface. Some of these might be specular (or mirror-like) reflections off of exposed walls of solid ice inside craters, or they might be uniformly large, frosty or icy-particle covered facets of topography that are so oriented as to give exceptionally bright but diffuse reflections.
The shadows cast by most craters in the scene are not dark, but rather, they are illuminated by light bouncing off of their sunlit walls and those of other craters. This light, which has been scattered multiple times, makes visible some details along the shadowed walls and floors of craters that would not otherwise be visible in this viewing geometry

© Stocktrek Images

Jupiter mosaic

This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard the Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, during its closest approach to the giant planet at a distance of approximately 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles).
It is the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced; the smallest visible features are approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) across. The mosaic is composed of 27 images: nine images were required to cover the entire planet in a tic-tac-toe pattern, and each of those locations was imaged in red, green, and blue to provide true color. Although Cassini's camera can see more colors than humans can, Jupiter's colors in this new view look very close to the way the human eye would see them.
Everything visible on the planet is a cloud. The parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the white ovals, and the large Great Red Spot persist over many years despite the intense turbulence visible in the atmosphere. The most energetic features are the small, bright clouds to the left of the Great Red Spot and in similar locations in the northern half of the planet. These clouds grow and disappear over a few days and generate lightning. Streaks form as clouds are sheared apart by Jupiter's intense jet streams that run parallel to the colored bands. The prominent dark band in the northern half of the planet is the location of Jupiter's fastest jet stream, with eastward winds of 480 kilometers (300 miles) per hour. Jupiter's diameter is eleven times that of Earth, so the smallest storms on this mosaic are comparable in size to the largest hurricanes on Earth

© Stocktrek Images