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Cassini Sees Saturn and Moons in Holiday Dress

By Guest PostDecember 25, 2013Scienceboulder, carolyn porco, cassini, enceladus, habitable zone, holiday season, linda spilker, liquid water reservoir, moons, most fascinating moons, NASA, planetary system, saturn, saturn pole, solar system, space science institute, titan

This holiday season, feast your eyes on images of Saturn and two of its most fascinating moons, Titan and Enceladus, in a care package from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. All three bodies are dressed and dazzling in this special package assembled by Cassini’s imaging team.

The new images are available online at: https://www.nasa.gov/cassini , https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and https://ciclops.org .

“During this, our tenth holiday season at Saturn, we hope that these images from Cassini remind everyone the world over of the significance of our discoveries in exploring such a remote and beautiful planetary system,” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader, based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. “Happy holidays from all of us on Cassini.” (more…)

NASA Releases Images of Earth by Distant Spacecraft

By Guest PostJuly 24, 2013Sciencecarolyn porco, cassini images earth, cassini spacecraft, columbia university, coming of age, distant spacecraft, images of earth, linda spilker, mercury, messenger, moon, NASA, nasa interplanetary spacecraft, photo of earth, planetary explorers, saturns rings, sean solomon, wide angle image

PASADENA, Calif. — Color and black-and-white images of Earth taken by two NASA interplanetary spacecraft on July 19 show our planet and its moon as bright beacons from millions of miles away in space.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) away. MESSENGER, the first probe to orbit Mercury, took a black-and-white image from a distance of 61 million miles (98 million kilometers) as part of a campaign to search for natural satellites of the planet. (more…)

From Cassini for the Holidays: A Splendor Seldom Seen

By Guest PostDecember 20, 2012Sciencecarolyn porco, cassini spacecraft, dark side, earth, european space agency, high solar phase, in saturns shadow, jpl, NASA, orbit, planet saturn, rings, saturn, sun

PASADENA, Calif — Just in time for the holidays, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn for more than eight years now, has delivered another glorious, backlit view of the planet Saturn and its rings.

On Oct. 17, 2012, during its 174th orbit around the gas giant, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn’s shadow, a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the sun and take a backlit view of the rings and the dark side of the planet. Looking back towards the sun is a geometry referred to by planetary scientists as “high solar phase;” near the center of your target’s shadow is the highest phase possible. This is a very scientifically advantageous and coveted viewing position, as it can reveal details about both the rings and atmosphere that cannot be seen in lower solar phase. (more…)

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Cassini Sees Saturn and Moons in Holiday Dress

NASA Releases Images of Earth by Distant Spacecraft

From Cassini for the Holidays: A Splendor Seldom Seen