Posts tagged saturn
I look up — many people feel small because they’re small and the Universe is big — but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity.
That’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant, you want to feel like a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you.
That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive…
- Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson [ x ]
(Source: quantumeagle, via astudyinspock)
Prometheus creating Saturn ring streamers
What’s causing those strange dark streaks in the rings of Saturn? Prometheus. Specifically, an orbital dance involving Saturn’s moon Prometheus keeps creating unusual light and dark streamers in the F-Ring of Saturn. Now Prometheus orbits Saturn just inside the thin F-ring, but ventures into its inner edge about every 15 hours. Prometheus’ gravity then pulls the closest ring particles toward the 100-km moon. The result is not only a stream of bright ring particles but also a dark ribbon where ring particles used to be. Since Prometheus orbits faster than the ring particles, the icy moon pulls out a new streamer every pass. Sometimes, several streamers or kinks are visible at once.
Image credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA
(Source: distant-traveller)
Angling Saturn
The Cassini spacecraft takes an angled view toward Saturn, showing the southern reaches of the planet with the rings on a dramatic diagonal. North on Saturn is up and rotated 16 degrees to the left. This view looks toward the southern, unilluminated side of the rings from about 14 degrees below the ringplane. The rings cast wide shadows on the planet’s southern hemisphere. The moon Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across) appears as a small, bright speck in the lower left of the image.
Image Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
(via distant-traveller)
Saturn
1. Saturn Mosaic
Photograph courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
A total of 126 images taken over the course of two hours make up this mosaic picture of Saturn. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft snapped the photos on October 6, 2004, when it was approximately 3.9 million miles (6.3 million kilometers) from Saturn. Cassini was on a four-year mission to explore the ringed planet.
2. Titan Halo
Photograph courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
A halo surrounds Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Titan’s atmosphere, almost entirely nitrogen, extends some 370 miles (600 kilometers) into space—ten times as far as Earth’s atmosphere.
3. Saturn and Moons
Photograph courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Two of Saturn’s 48 known moons are barely visible in this picture of the ringed planet. Mimas, at the upper right, has an enormous impact crater on one side, and Tethys, at the bottom, has a huge rift zone called Ithaca Chasma that runs nearly three-quarters of the way around the moon.
4. Saturn’s Rings
Photograph courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn’s otherworldly rings encircle the planet and extend out for hundreds of thousands of kilometers. The rings—there are thousands—are made up of billions of ice and rock particles, thought to be pieces of comets, asteroids, or shattered moons.
A body of mystery
Titan (or Saturn VI) is the largest moon of Saturn. It is the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found.
1. Cassini image of Titan, behind Epimetheus and the rings; 2. Cassini image of Titan in front of the rings of Saturn
(Source: expose-the-light)
2004: Launched in 1997, Cassini-Huygens eneters the orbit of Saturn in 2004 returning stunning images of the planet, its rings and its satellites.
(via fuckyeahspaceexploration)
