Saturn moon animations
Jun. 23rd, 2006 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinFor some time now, Cassini has been exploring Saturn's magnetic tail, spending most of its time on the night side of the planet and very close to its equatorial plane. So the main visual attraction, aside from yet more Titan approaches, is all these pretty shots of multiple crescent moons and crescent Saturn itself, with the rings only appearing as a thin line or band. The imaging team has made some of these into animations (and a color still image). They're nice.
Late in July, this phase of the tour is coming to an end and Cassini is going to start looping higher and higher out of the equatorial plane over the coming year, eventually ascending to a high enough latitude that there will be pictures of Saturn suspended in its rings like an oval bullseye. The purpose is to flip the orbit around so that the ellipses point outward on the day side again, and Cassini starts encountering Titan and other moons at a new sun angle. Once that's done, in the fall of 2007, there will be some more moon flybys including a close flyby of the bizarre moon Iapetus that should fill in the remaining blank space on the map. Then, in 2008, in the last phase of the primary mission, Cassini will spiral in closer to Saturn and tilt its orbit to an even higher inclination to get spectacular pictures of the rings.
Everything after that is gravy, a.k.a extended mission, and it's not planned yet.
Late in July, this phase of the tour is coming to an end and Cassini is going to start looping higher and higher out of the equatorial plane over the coming year, eventually ascending to a high enough latitude that there will be pictures of Saturn suspended in its rings like an oval bullseye. The purpose is to flip the orbit around so that the ellipses point outward on the day side again, and Cassini starts encountering Titan and other moons at a new sun angle. Once that's done, in the fall of 2007, there will be some more moon flybys including a close flyby of the bizarre moon Iapetus that should fill in the remaining blank space on the map. Then, in 2008, in the last phase of the primary mission, Cassini will spiral in closer to Saturn and tilt its orbit to an even higher inclination to get spectacular pictures of the rings.
Everything after that is gravy, a.k.a extended mission, and it's not planned yet.
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Date: 2006-06-23 11:22 pm (UTC)hehe
Date: 2006-06-24 01:39 pm (UTC)turn and face the strange
Date: 2006-06-24 03:13 pm (UTC)