[meteorite-list] The (Long) Weekend Warrior: Nine Moons, 62 Hours (Cassini)

From: karmaka <karmaka_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 01:24:33 +0200 (CEST)
Message-ID: <2074592260.440556.1287530673471.JavaMail.fmail_at_mwmweb017>

BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL IMAGES !!!

I'm at a loss of words.

Thanks for the link, Ron.

It's always very appreciated!

Martin




-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: "Ron Baalke"
Gesendet: 20.10.2010 00:23:54
An: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Betreff: [meteorite-list] The (Long) Weekend Warrior: Nine Moons, 62 Hours (Cassini)

>
>http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-341
>
>The (Long) Weekend Warrior: Nine Moons, 62 Hours
>Jet Propulsion Laboratory
>October 19, 2010
>
>Taking a long-weekend road trip, NASA's Cassini spacecraft successfully
>glided near nine Saturnian moons, sending back a stream of raw images as
>mementos of its adrenaline-fueled expedition. The spacecraft sent back
>particularly intriguing images of the moons Dione and Rhea.
>
>The Dione and Rhea pictures are the highest-resolution views yet of
>parts of their surfaces. The views of the southern part of Dione's
>leading hemisphere (the part of the moon that faces forward in its orbit
>around Saturn) and the equatorial region of Rhea's leading hemisphere
>are more detailed than the last time we saw these terrains with NASA's
>Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s.
>
>Of the five big icy moons of Saturn, Dione and Rhea are often considered
>a pair because they orbit close to each other, are darker than the
>others, and exhibit similar patterns of light reflecting off them. These
>new images, however, highlight the differences between these sister moons.
>
>Both images show similar geographic regions on each satellite. However,
>scientists can identify differences in geological histories of the two
>bodies from differences in the numbers and sizes of visible craters on
>their surfaces. The number and size of craters on a body's surface help
>indicate the age of that surface - the more craters there are and the
>larger they are, the older the surface is.
>
>Rhea, for example, shows ancient, intense bombardments throughout this
>region. However, the same region of Dione is divided into distinct areas
>that exhibit variations in the number and size of preserved craters. In
>particular, while parts of Dione are heavily cratered like Rhea, there
>are other areas covered by relatively smooth plains. Those areas have
>many small craters, but few large impact scars, which indicates that
>they are geologically younger than the heavily cratered areas. The
>smooth plains must have been resurfaced at some point in Dione's past --
>an event that seems to be missing from Rhea's geological history on this
>side of the moon.
>
>Images of the moon Mimas, captured just before it went into shadow
>behind Saturn, will be compared to thermal maps made earlier this year
>that showed an unexpected "Pac-Man" heat pattern. (See for more details.
><http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-103>)
>
>Cassini also caught a picture of the tiny, 4-kilometer-wide
>(3-mile-wide) moon Pallene, in front of the planet Saturn, which is more
>than 120,000 kilometers (75,000 miles) wide at its equator.
>
>Cassini's elliptical orbital pattern around Saturn means it can target
>moons for flybys about once or twice a month. The flybys on this
>particular Cassini road trip were "non-targeted" flybys, meaning
>navigators did not refine Cassini's path to fly over particular points
>on each moon.
>
>Cassini's long weekend started on Thursday, Oct. 14, at 5:07 p.m. UTC
>(9:07 a.m. PDT), when it passed by Saturn's largest moon Titan at an
>altitude of 172,368 kilometers (107,104 miles) above the surface. Then
>came a whirlwind 21 hours in which Cassini flew by Polydeuces at 116,526
>kilometers (72,406 miles), Mimas at 69,950 kilometers (43,465 miles),
>Pallene at 36,118 kilometers (22,443 miles), Telesto at 48,455
>kilometers (30,109 miles), Methone at 105,868 kilometers (65,783 miles),
>Aegaeon at 96,754 kilometers (60,120 miles) and Dione at 31,710
>kilometers (19,704 miles). Cassini's last visit -- Rhea at 38,752
>kilometers (24,079 miles) ??? took place at 6:47 a.m. UTC on Oct. 17
>(10:47 p.m. PDT on Oct. 16).
>
>Scientists decided in advance which observations they wanted to make
>while the spacecraft was cruising past all the moons. They chose to
>obtain images of Titan, Mimas, Pallene, Dione and Rhea. They also
>obtained thermal scans of Mimas, Dione and Rhea.
>
>For more raw images, visit: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/ .
>
>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
>European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion
>Laboratory manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
>Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at
>JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science
>Institute in Boulder, Colo.
>
>More Cassini information is available, at t http://www.nasa.gov/cassini
><http://www.nasa.gov/cassini>and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.
>
>Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
>Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
>jia-rui.c.cook at jpl.nasa.gov
>
>2010-341
>
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Received on Tue 19 Oct 2010 07:24:33 PM PDT