Cassini-Huygens - NASA/ESA Saturn orbiter & Titan lander

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-01-23 04:34:48

Predicting the weather on Titan?
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMAXTMZCIE_index_0.html
23 January 2006
Using recent Cassini, Huygens and Earth-based observations, scientists have been able to create a computer model which explains the formation of several types of ethane and methane clouds on Titan.
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This climate model also allows scientists to predict the cloud distribution for the complete Titan year (30 terrestrial years), and especially in the next years of Cassini observations.

Moons in Perspective
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i … ageID=1964
Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across, at left) is outside the far side of the rings. Dione (1,126 kilometers, or 700 miles across) is outside the rings and closest to Cassini.
The view is from just beneath the ringplane.

NASA Cassini Image:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=19353
Tethys and Titan

The Huygens Landing:
http://www.space-travel.com/news/The_Hu … ar_On.html
One Year On

Palomar · 2006-01-30 09:56:21

*Center, below Rings:

Amateur astronomers are monitoring a big storm on Saturn. It's the swirling white spot in this photo taken by Don Parker of Coral Gables, Florida:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2006/2 … arker1.jpg

Compared to the 120,000 km-wide disk of Saturn, the storm seems small. It's not. The white spot is actually wider than the planet Mercury and is almost big enough to swallow Mars!
There's more: The storm might be a lightning storm. NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been detecting crackling radio bursts of the sort you hear on your car radio when a thunderstorm is nearby. The white spot is a likely source.

This from spaceweather.com

--Cindy

DonPanic · 2006-02-07 14:38:07

Hello
One year data study results from Cassini Huygens.
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia … ast001.mp4
Gotta understand froggy english speaking

Palomar · 2006-02-07 16:40:25

Majestic in its own right

*Dark-side Saturn and Rings. Thanks Cassini; if not for you we'd never have seen this.

--Cindy

EuroLauncher · 2006-02-08 20:03:40

Majestic in its own right
*Dark-side Saturn and Rings. Thanks Cassini; if not for you we'd never have seen this.
--Cindy

what a great photo !

Palomar · 2006-02-16 07:47:07

Giant lightning storm

Researchers are tracking an electrical storm on Saturn that has raged since at least Jan. 23 and covers an area larger than the continental United States, with lightning bolts more than 1,000 times stronger than those seen on Earth

"It is clear that this is the strongest lightning activity that we've seen yet with Cassini since it has arrived at Saturn..."

Mentions amateur input (1st post).

"With Cassini we have learned that lightning storms can emerge suddenly and last for several weeks or even a month," said RPWS team member Georg Fischer. "On the other hand, we have only observed a single smaller lightning storm throughout 2005, which is remarkably different compared to what we know about terrestrial thunderstorms."

Yeah...I've been surprised at the lack of reported lightning activity. Had been hoping Saturn's weather is a bit more exciting than this. Maybe it's cyclical; Cassini's got at least 2-1/2 years remaining of its mission.

The origin of such storms is unknown, but they could be related to Saturn's warm interior

Mentions comparison with a storm observed by Voyager 1 in 1980.

--Cindy

::EDIT:: Search for storm during Saturnian night

Interesting splayed pattern to that storm. It does resemble the Dragon Storm somewhat. I wonder if most large storms on Saturn are shaped that way...and why.

Also -- you can listen to the sounds of this storm by clicking on a link (not transferrable) being hosted at http://www.spaceweather.com for today's date. They'll probably retain the link at the homepage for a day or two, and thereafter it'll be archived.

Palomar · 2006-03-07 07:30:18

Fabulous photo

*Enceladus superimposed by another moon (not identified...I wish they wouldn't do that) and the Rings close to on-edge. This is a first for this sort of photo, that I've yet seen anyway.

Palomar · 2006-03-09 13:50:54

[/b]may have pockets of liquid water lurking beneath its surface feeding great jets that spew from the satellite, hinting at the possibility of a habitable environment[/b]
Observations from the Cassini spacecraft ... shows Enceladus to be a geologist's dream, with an active plume spewing water and other material spaceward, as well as a hot spot of thermal activity at its south pole.
"This finding has substantially broadened the range of environments in the solar system that might support living organisms, and it doesn't get any more significant than that," said Carolyn Porco

Comparing Enceladus and Europa:

Enceladus' active nature points toward subsurface water reservoirs beneath its icy exterior, much like that believed to churn just under the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, researchers said. But unlike Europa, which researchers believe harbors a vast ocean beneath kilometers of thick ice, Enceladus' water may be just below the surface.

Article in full

(Move over again, Titan)...

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-10 14:30:05

water, and more on the search for ingredients for life
wonderful news !

Palomar · 2006-03-11 06:40:18

water, and more on the search for ingredients for life
wonderful news !

*Hi YLR.

Now THIS is interesting:

Artist's conception from 1986

Cassini mission scientist Carolyn Porco calls it a "radical conclusion"--that a tiny icy moon with a surface temperature three hundred degrees below zero could harbor liquid water. Sometimes radical is right. NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been observing geysers spewing out of Saturn's moon Enceladus, and the only explanation seems to be liquid water just below the moon's surface.
Space artist Merry Wooten anticipated the discovery two decades ago.
Wooten had a hunch that Saturn's powerful tides might cause geothermal activity on Enceladus. Her painting of the resulting ice-geysers first appeared in a planetarium show, "When Worlds Erupt," in 1986.

8)

All that from spaceweather.com

--Cindy

Palomar · 2006-03-18 07:09:08

Cool!

The formation of odd spokes in Saturn’s rings may depend on the amount of sunlight striking the planet’s ring plane, scientists said Thursday.
A new study suggests that the spokes appear more often while Saturn’s rings are edge-on to the Sun, but fade out when the rings are completed tilted out at maximum exposure.
“In fact, they can be entirely switched off at times”

*Maybe people will finally begin to believe me when I say Saturn is groovy. 8)

They're expecting that spoke activity should start again soon -- by July at least (different source).

According to Horányi’s model, Saturn’s ring spokes appear to be active about eight years at a time, followed by an absence of up to seven years.
Astronomers caught their first close look of ring spokes during NASA’s Voyager mission, which swung past Saturn during the 1980s and returned images of spokes forming rapidly – within five minutes at times – between subsequent photographs.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2006-03-23 06:33:22

This is art

*Rhea is such a perfect "little" circle. And the delicate Ring shadows...

---

Janus in front, Titan behind

Unique.

Those haze layers in Titan's upper atmosphere are easily visible in the photo. Cool.

--Cindy

Mars_B4_Moon · 2006-03-27 11:58:55

Fabulous photo
*Enceladus superimposed by another moon (not identified...I wish they wouldn't do that) and the Rings close to on-edge. This is a first for this sort of photo, that I've yet seen anyway.

more Enceladus pics

http://www.dlr.de/saturn/de/DesktopDefa … ge.9.1452/
http://www.dlr.de/saturn/de/PortalData/ … _south.jpg

Palomar · 2006-03-29 13:43:50

*Hi MarsB4Moon: Nice pics!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060329/ … ycollision

I doubt many of us avids are surprised...

Oddly shaped gaps found in Saturn's rings hint at the existence of long sought "moonlets" and support the theory that the rings are the broken remains of an icy moon shattered long ago in a violent collision, scientists say.
Scientists think a comet or asteroid collided with one of Saturn's moons about 100 million years ago. Such an impact would have created debris in a range of sizes...

Mentions "propellers," etc. Good article.

--Cindy

EuroLauncher · 2006-04-03 21:49:23

not Saturn but Jupiter
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huy … GLE_1.html
an old Cassini-Huygens Jupiter fly-by on 11/12 December 2000, these photos are amazing

'smallest visible features are about 120 kilometres across'

Palomar · 2006-04-13 07:30:02

:~:cartwheel:~: {hand spring}

Psychedelic Saturn

*Yep, that's their caption. Someone's been reading my posts in this forum??? Nah, probably just the "great minds think alike" coincidence.

Saturn's storms and circulation are driven in part by internal heating. Amazingly, the planet is still contracting (ever so slightly) from its formation, more than 4.5 billion years ago. This gravitational contraction liberates energy in the form of heat.

Didn't know that (bolded portion). Cool.

-*-

Bright Vortex

Gaseous Saturn rotates quickly -- once every approximately 10.8 hours -- and its horizontal cloud bands rotate at different rates relative to each other. These conditions can cause turbulent features in the atmosphere to become greatly stretched and sheared, creating the beautiful patterns that the Cassini spacecraft observes.

Vortices like the one seen here are long-lived dynamical features that are part of the general circulation of Saturn's atmosphere. They are counterparts to the east-west flowing jets and can last for months or years.

Wish I was out there with Cassini. We have such sights to show you...

-*-

Seeking the Cloud Tops

Long, thin streamers of cloud arc gracefully across this view of Saturn's southerly latitudes.
Analysis of images like this should lead scientists to a new understanding of cloud height variations on this complex gas giant world.

That is REALLY pretty. It'd be great if they could do a 3D image of Saturn's clouds, such as from this photo. We see them as all seemingly "flat" in these pics.

--Cindy

Commodore · 2006-05-04 16:28:32

Some really spectacular videos of the Huygens decent

[url=http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/pia08118-320-cc.mov]
A View from Huygens - Jan. 14, 2005
QuickTime (closed captioned) (15.4 MB)[/url]

[url=http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/PIA08117.mov]
Titan Descent Data Movie with Bells and Whistles
QuickTime (computer animation) (11.1 MB)[/url]

Palomar · 2006-05-16 12:20:40

[URL=http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2129]Saturn's night colors & crescent Tethys[/URL]

This rare color view of Saturn's night side shows how the rings dimly illuminate the southern hemisphere, giving it a dull golden glow.

The unlit side of the rings is shown here. The portion of the rings closest to Cassini is within the dark shadow of Saturn; the bright distant portion is outside the planet's shadow.

Beautiful and serene.

-*-

[URL=http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2130]Mysterious Iapetus[/URL]

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[URL=http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2132]Titan: Dunes and more dunes[/URL]

The swath is about 6,150 kilometers kilometers (3,821 miles) long, extending from 7 degrees north to 18 degrees south latitude and 179 west to 320 west longitude.

-*-

[URL=http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2131]Stunning vista[/URL]

Understatement That is one heckuva swell photo.

Palomar · 2006-07-08 05:19:13

G Ring arc proves Saturn has it all

Imaging team members now believe this feature is long-lived and may be held together by resonant interactions with the moon Mimas of the type that corral the famed ring arcs around Neptune. "We've known since the days of Voyager that we had Jovian-type and Uranian-type rings within the rings of Saturn," said Cassini imaging team leader Dr. Carolyn Porco in Boulder, Colo., who was the first to work out the dynamics of the Neptunian arcs in Voyager observations. "Now it appears that Saturn may be home to Neptunian-type rings as well. Saturn's rings have it all!"

The G ring arc is the same feature identified in images of this ring taken in May 2005. "We have seen the arc a handful of times over the past year," said Dr. Matt Hedman, Cassini imaging team associate working at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "It always appears to be a few times brighter than the rest of the G ring and very tightly confined to a narrow strip along the inside edge of the 'normal' G ring."
The researchers do not know exactly how the bright arc formed. One possibility is that a collision between small, perhaps meter-sized icy bodies orbiting within the G ring set loose a cloud of fine particles that eventually came under the influence of Mimas. But this new observation suggests that the remainder of the G ring itself may be derived from particles leaking away from this arc and drifting outwards. Future Cassini imaging observations are being planned to take a closer look at the G ring arc.

Saturn's mine. Humankind can have the remainder of the Solar System...

Palomar · 2006-07-25 11:10:20

Hydrocarbon lakes on Titan?

Palomar · 2006-07-26 05:56:12

Pebbles nearest Huygens lander estimated to be between 5 cm and 10 cm in size

Palomar · 2006-07-26 08:26:40

[URL=http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2216]1st spoke seen by Cassini in nearly a year[/URL]

*...also, it's remarkable for being on a sunlit portion of the rings (first of such Cassini has seen).

Palomar · 2006-07-31 10:42:30

Methane drizzles on Titan -- continuously
Liquid methane drizzles on the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn, according to a paper by NASA and university scientists. "The rain on Titan is just a slight drizzle, but it rains all the time, day in, day out. It makes the ground wet and muddy with liquid methane."

Full article

A gap separates the liquid methane cloud -- the source of the rain -- from a higher, upper methane ice cloud

According to scientists, the rain comes from thin clouds of methane. The upper clouds are methane ice, and the lower clouds are liquid and composed of a combination of methane and nitrogen...
"We determined that the rain on Titan is equal to about two inches (about 5 centimeters) a year," McKay said. "This is about as much rain as Death Valley (receives). The difference is (that) on Titan, this rain is spread out evenly over the entire year."

*Drizzle would be the correct word.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2006-08-02 12:16:47

[URL=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060802.html]Titan artscape -- this is very realistic imo[/URL]

*Wow...I can almost feel those methane raindrops. Excellent.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-08-22 11:07:58

[URL=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060802.html]Titan artscape -- this is very realistic imo[/URL]
*Wow...I can almost feel those methane raindrops. Excellent.

great link !

some news

Titan's Xanadu Region is Earth-Like Land
story here
Earth has a waycool sibling
http://www.startribune.com/789/story/609738.html

New Mars Forums

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#201 2006-01-23 04:34:48

Re: Cassini-Huygens - NASA/ESA Saturn orbiter & Titan lander

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Re: Cassini-Huygens - NASA/ESA Saturn orbiter & Titan lander

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Re: Cassini-Huygens - NASA/ESA Saturn orbiter & Titan lander

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Re: Cassini-Huygens - NASA/ESA Saturn orbiter & Titan lander

#224 2006-08-02 12:16:47

Re: Cassini-Huygens - NASA/ESA Saturn orbiter & Titan lander

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Re: Cassini-Huygens - NASA/ESA Saturn orbiter & Titan lander

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