News | November 29, 2010
Warm Cracks on Enceladus and Filling the Gaps in the Tethys Global Map – Image Gallery
Enceladus |
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| The thermal infrared data, shown in color, come from Cassini's composite infrared mapping spectrometer (CIRS). The grayscale background image, which is illuminated by light reflected from Saturn rather than by direct sunlight, is from Cassini's high-resolution imaging camera (ISS). The CIRS scan gives scientists confidence that the peak temperature along Damascus Sulcus, the most active tiger stripe, was about 190 Kelvin (minus 120 degrees Fahrenheit). | |
| This map reveals never-before-seen details of warm fractures that branch off like split ends from the ends of the main trenches of two 'tiger stripes.'
The thermal data came from Cassini's composite infrared mapping spectrometer during an Aug. 13, 2010, flyby of Enceladus. Scientists overlaid the data on a background map of that region made from Cassini images taken in July 2005. |
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| Small water ice particles fly from fissures in the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus in this image taken during the Aug. 13, 2010, flyby of the moon. This view looks toward the night side of Saturn, which is in the lower left of the image. Enceladus, in the top right, is closer to the spacecraft than the planet is in this view. Sunlight scatters through the planet's atmosphere and forms the bright diagonal line running from the left to bottom right of the image. The atmosphere appears layered here. Scientists think the different layers on the limb are real and not an artifact of the camera's exposure. The famous jets, imaged by Cassini's cameras for the first time in 2005, are faintly seen here erupting from the fractures that cross the south polar region of the moon. |
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| A crescent of Enceladus appears dimly illuminated in front of the bright limb of Saturn.
This view looks toward the night side of Saturn, which occupies the lower half of the image. Enceladus, in the center of the image, is closer to the spacecraft than the planet is in this view. Sunlight scatters through the planet's atmosphere and forms the bright diagonal line running from the left to right of the image. |
Tethys |
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| This map is an update to the version released in February 2010 (see Map of Tethys - February 2010). New data collected during Cassini's Aug. 14, 2010, flyby of the moon are used to fill in the far northern latitudes of the map from about 75 degrees north latitude to the north pole. Coverage also improves farther south on the side of the moon facing away from Saturn. | |
| The northern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Tethys is seen in this polar stereographic map, mosaicked from the best-available images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
The map is centered on the north pole, and surface coverage extends to the equator. Grid lines show latitude and longitude in 30-degree increments. The scale, in the full-size versions of the map, is 293 meters (960 feet) per pixel. |
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| The brightly illuminated, prominent impact crater near the bottom middle of this image has been dissected by numerous parallel faults that run diagonally across the image. The presence of the faults that cut through the crater and the movement of surface materials have made the crater outline somewhat non-circular. | |
| The southern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Tethys is seen in this polar stereographic maps, mosaicked from the best-available images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
The map is centered on the south pole, and surface coverage extends to the equator. Grid lines show latitude and longitude in 30-degree increments. The scale in the full-size versions of these maps is 293 meters (960 feet) per pixel. The mean radius of Tethys used for projection of these maps is 536.3 kilometers (333.2 miles). The large Penelope Crater is shown in the lower right of the south pole map, in the southern latitudes of the hemisphere of Tethys that faces backward in its orbit around Saturn. |
