Posts Tagged saturn
Titan and Dione
Today’s APOD is not to be missed! (But I’m a sucker for images of Saturn and the moons thereof.)
Orbiting in the plane of Saturn’s rings, Saturnian moons have a perpetual ringside view of the gorgeous gas giant planet. Of course, while passing near the ring plane the Cassini spacecraft also shares their stunning perspective. The rings themselves can be seen slicing across the middle of this Cassini snapshot from May of last year. The scene features Titan, largest, and Dione, third largest moon of Saturn. Remarkably thin, the bright rings still cast arcing shadows across the planet’s cloud tops at the bottom of the frame. Pale Dione is about 1,100 kilometers across and orbits over 300,000 kilometers from the visible outer edge of the A ring. Dione is seen through Titan’s atmospheric haze. At 5,150 kilometers across, Titan is about 2.3 million kilometers from Cassini, while Dione is 3.2 million kilometers away.
Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
Saturn Beach
Space Beach 2, composite image by John Williams
My good friend John Williams made this captivating composite of space and terrestrial images. I love the combination of elements — spectacular space art!
Saturn image credit: NASA/JPL
Moonlight of Saturn
Posted by Danielle in Fashion & Accessories on September 6, 2011
Moonlight of Saturn Necklace by Lisa Zamcho (BrightFireBeads @ Etsy)
Steampunk? Saturn? Why yes, I’ll have some of that!
A brass Saturn is surrounded by gears and red Swarovski Crystal Moonlets. An antique pocket watch movement and a hand tooled filigree serve as the base in this piece.
Saturn Storm
Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA; Color Composite: Jean-Luc Dauvergne
Storms are more interesting when they’re on other planets. Not that Earth’s storms are boring, mind you — but isn’t a Saturn storm more exciting by default?
Late last year, a new, remarkably bright storm erupted in Saturn’s northern hemisphere. Amateur astronomers first spotted it in early December, with the ringed gas giant rising in planet Earth’s predawn sky. Orbiting Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft was able to record this close-up of the complex disturbance from a distance of 1.8 million kilometers on December 24th. Over time, the storm has evolved, spreading substantially in longitude, and now stretches far around the planet. Saturn’s thin rings are also seen slicing across this space-based view, casting broad shadows on the planet’s southern hemisphere.
Distant Worlds
Posted by Danielle in Art & Architecture, Books & Literature on September 9, 2010
I know, I know, I have a thing for Soviet retro-futurist art… but you have to admit, these Soviet illustrations are nothing short of stunning! (Info and images via Dark Roasted Blend.)
Karl Gilzin’s book ["Travel to Distant Worlds"] (from 1958) contained some pretty neat illustrations … [b]ut the illustrations got even better once this book was translated into Russian, and some nameless artist from DetGiz Publishing House in 1960 drew these inspiring scenes…
I couldn’t decide what planet I liked best, so here’s Saturn:
And here’s Mars:
Rhea and Rings
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saw this lovely new Cassini image at Universe Today:
Rhea, saturn’s second largest moon sits in front of the rings, joined by two smaller moons in the background. Rhea (1528 kilometers, 949 miles across) is in the center foreground. Janus (179 kilometers, 111 miles across) can be seen beyond the rings on the right of the image. Prometheus (86 kilometers, 53 miles across) is visible orbiting between the main rings and the thin F ring on the left of the image. Lit terrain seen on Rhea is on the area between that moon’s trailing hemisphere and anti-Saturn side. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.
Gorgeous stuff, I’m loving everything Cassini sends back to us!
Moons
Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI; Color composite: Emily Lakdawalla
Cassini is probably my favorite planetary explorer to date. There’s just something about Saturn, it’s a playground of wonders. I’m amazed at the variation in the moons, from fuzzy atmospheres to dirty iceballs to… Death Stars.
Still, as far as I’m concerned, as satellites go… east or west, home is best.
Earth's Moon, as seen from Space Shuttle Discovery (Credit: STS-131 crew)
Saturn Latte
Posted by Danielle in Food & Drink on March 24, 2010
I first saw this marvelous bit of latte art here, and failing to find a larger version on Flickr, traced it here and eventually to Reddit. (Where it’s still only 400×300.) It really bugs me when I can’t find the original version and can’t be sure of the “source” being the actual original, but PhotoBucket seems to be as close as it gets, so there you go.
I want a latte just like this. It would MAKE my DAY. Actually, it would make my MONTH.
Helene
I’m pretty sure it’s not intentional, but the cropping of this new image of Saturn’s moon Helene makes it really eye-catching. Framing really makes or breaks a photo. I’m in an artsy mood, alright? Also, color images can be gorgeous and breathtaking (and space ones often are), but there’s just something about black and white….
(Somewhere out there, a photographer-reader is nodding. Uh-huh. I see you.)
What’s happening on the surface of Saturn’s moon Helene? The moon was imaged in unprecedented detail last week as the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn swooped to within two Earth diameters of the diminutive moon. Although conventional craters and hills appear, the above raw and unprocessed image also shows terrain that appears unusually smooth and streaked. Planetary astronomers will be inspecting these detailed images of Helene to glean clues about the origin and evolution of the 30-km across floating iceberg. Helene is also unusual because it circles Saturn just ahead of the large moon Dione, making it one of only four known moons to occupy a gravitational well known as a stable Lagrange point.
Tethys and Titan
Hard to decide what to post after yesterday’s anniversary and news… all I know is, posting retro space race ads seemed wildly inappropriate. So here you go. It’s Titan with Tethys in the distance, courtesy of Cassini.
What’s that behind Titan? It’s another of Saturn’s moons: Tethys. The robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn captured the heavily cratered Tethys slipping behind Saturn’s atmosphere-shrouded Titan late last year. The largest crater on Tethys, Odysseus, is easily visible on the distant moon. Titan shows not only its thick and opaque orange lower atmosphere, but also an unusual upper layer of blue-tinted haze. Tethys, at about 2 million kilometers distant, was twice as far from Cassini as was Titan when the above image was taken. In 2004, Cassini released the Hyugens probe which landed on Titan and provided humanity’s first views of the surface of the Solar System’s only known lake-bearing moon.
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About Silver Rockets
This blog celebrates space exploration, human spaceflight and the heavens, through lots and lots ofimages.
My name is Danielle Signor, and I am a space cadet. STS-133 NASA Tweetup Attendee!
This is a blog, NOT A SHOP. Click the images for their source or purchase link, if available.
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