Saturn

Cassini Captures a Rarely-Seen Moon

May 22, 2012

While many of us here on Earth were waiting for the Moon to take a bite out of the Sun this past Sunday, Cassini was doing some moon watching of its own, 828.5 million miles away! The image above is a color-composite raw image of Methone (pronounced meh-tho-nee), a tiny, egg-shaped moon only 2 miles [...]

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A New Angle on Titan

May 11, 2012

Here’s a great shot of Titan and Saturn acquired by Cassini on May 6, 2012 just after a pass by the haze-covered moon. It’s a color-composite made from images taken in Cassini’s red, green and blue color channels, and the resulting image was color adjusted a bit to appear more “Saturny”.

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Exploration at its Finest: Cassini Visits Dione

May 4, 2012

After completing its most recent flyby of Enceladus, Cassini made a pass by Dione — its final visit of the icy moon for the next three years. Coming within  5,000 miles (8000 km) of Dione on May 2, Cassini captured some fantastic images of the moon’s heavily-cratered and frozen surface. Here’s just a few of [...]

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Enceladus On Display In Newest Images From Cassini

May 3, 2012

The latest images are in from Saturn’s very own personal paparazzi, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, fresh from its early morning flyby of the ice-spewing moon Enceladus. And, being its last closeup for the next three years, the little moon didn’t disappoint!

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Cassini’s Last Flyby of Enceladus Until 2015

May 1, 2012

On May 2, the Cassini spacecraft will be swooping past the moon we all love to love — Enceladus — and coming within 74 kilometers (46 miles) of its fractured, jet-spewing surface. The images should be spectacular, and the science should be just as enticing. With Cassini’s radio science experiment, scientists hope to learn more [...]

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Outer Space – Mind Blowing Video from Jupiter and Saturn

April 26, 2012

Video Caption: This mesmerizing video unveils incredibly amazing sequences around Jupiter and Saturn from NASA’s Cassini and Voyager missions set to stirring music by “The Cinematic Orchestra -That Home (Instrumental)”. Credit: Sander van den Berg Don’t hesitate 1 moment ! Look and listen to this mind blowing video of the Jupiter and Saturnian systems. If [...]

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Glittering ‘Mini-Jets’ Found in Saturn’s Curious F-Ring

April 23, 2012

New images from the Cassini spacecraft have revealed kilometer-sized objects piercing through parts of Saturn’s F ring, leaving glittering trails behind them. These trails in the rings, which scientists are calling “mini-jets,” provide insight into the curious behavior of the F ring, which Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco called “Saturn’s most beguiling phenomena.” With [...]

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Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast: April 23-29, 2012

April 22, 2012

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! What a great week to just enjoy some great unaided eye astronomy observations. Who can resist the beautiful appearance of Mars in Leo? Also this week, you’ll enjoy not one – but two – meteor showers as the Mu Virginids come to town mid-week and the Bootids light up the weekend. Get [...]

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African Lake Has a Twin on Titan

April 19, 2012

A large lake on Saturn’s cloud-covered Titan seems very similar to the Etosha Pan, a salt-encrusted dry lakebed in northern Namibia that periodically fills with water. As it turns out, Titan’s “great lake” may also be temporary.

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Cassini Slips Through Enceladus’ Spray

April 16, 2012

Spray it again, Enceladus! This Saturday the Cassini spacecraft paid another visit to Enceladus, Saturn’s 318-mile-wide moon that’s become famous for its icy geysers.During its latest close pass Cassini got a chance to “taste” Enceladus’ spray using its ion and neutral mass spectrometer, giving researchers more information on what sort of watery environment may be hiding [...]

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Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast – April 16-22, 2012

April 14, 2012

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It’s International Dark Skies Week and a great time to enjoy astronomy! We’ll start off with an impressive galaxy for even small optics and enjoy two meteor showers. There are planets and planetary nebula to explore, as well as some awesome globular clusters. If you’re in the mood, there’s some history to [...]

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See Big and Bright Saturn at Opposition This Weekend

April 13, 2012

Now is the time to take a look at the planet Saturn, as the ringed planet will be at opposition this weekend, making its closest approach to Earth on April 15, 2012. Its face will be fully illuminated by the Sun, so get out those telescopes, binoculars and your imaging equipment! We want to see [...]

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Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast: April 9-15, 2012

April 7, 2012

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It’s shaping up to be a great week to enjoy astronomy. For both hemispheres, the Virginid Meteor shower is underway and its peak occurs late Monday night / early Tuesday morning. Need more celestial fireworks? Then keep looking up as the “April Fireballs” will be visiting, with their peak beginning about a [...]

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Postcards From Saturn

March 30, 2012

Over the past few days NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has performed flybys of several of Saturn’s moons. From the ostentatious Enceladus with its icy geysers to the rugged relief of Rhea, the sharp peaks of Dione’s frigid craters and even diminutive Janus, Cassini has once again returned a stack of stunning views from the Saturnian system, [...]

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“Snowing Microbes” On Saturn’s Moon?

March 28, 2012

Enceladus, Saturn’s 318-mile-wide moon that’s become famous for its ice-spraying southern jets, is on astronomers’ short list of places in our own solar system where extraterrestrial life could be hiding — and NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is in just the right place to try and sniff it out.

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Massive Ice Avalanches on Iapetus

March 21, 2012

We’ve seen avalanches on Mars, but now scientists have found avalanches taking place on an unlikely place in our solar system: Saturn’s walnut-shaped, two-toned moon Iapetus. And these aren’t just run-of-the-mill avalanches: they are huge inundations of debris. These events are specifically known as long-runout landslides — debris flows that have traveled unusually long distances. [...]

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Two Moons In Passing

March 21, 2012

Saturn’s moon Tethys passes in front of its slightly larger sister Dione in this animation made from 25 raw images acquired by Cassini on March 14, 2012. Pretty cool! (Click the image to play.)

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Photo Treat: Enceladus, Titan and Saturn’s Rings

March 20, 2012

Little Enceladus and enormous Titan are seen on either side of Saturn’s rings in this image, a color-composite made from raw images acquired by Cassini on March 12, 2012. The original images were taken in red, green and blue color channels, and with a little Photoshop editing I combined them into a roughly true-color view [...]

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Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast – March 19-25, 2012

March 18, 2012

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The week starts off with new Moon and the perfect opportunity to do a Messier Marathon. The planets continue to dazzle as we not only celebrate the Vernal Equinox, but the March Geminid meteor shower as well! If that doesn’t get your pulsar racing – nothing will. It’s time to get out [...]

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Saturn’s “Wispy” Moon Has An Oxygen Atmosphere

March 3, 2012

There’s oxygen around Dione, a research team led by scientists at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory announced on Friday. The presence of molecular oxygen around Dione creates an intriguing possibility for organic compounds — the building blocks of life — to exist on other outer planet moons.

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