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A new image from the Cassini orbiter offers up a delicious view looking past the south polar area of Saturn's moon Rhea to the icy moon Dione in the distance, seemingly balanced on Saturn's rings.
Saturn's rings are closer to Cassini than Dione, obscuring the view of the south of Dione, according to an image advisory. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 11, 2011. The spacecraft was approximately 38,000 miles from Rhea and 574,000 miles from Dione.
The composition is similar to NASA's famous Earthrise photo made as the Apollo 8 crew swung around the Earth's moon on Christmas Eve 1968 and caught their home planet hanging in the black sky. That image is credited for helping ignite the environmental movement on Earth. What will Cassini's image do for Dione?
More on Saturn's moons Rhea and Dione:
- Saturn's 'dead' moons actually alive
- Cassini spots tectonic activity on Saturn moon
- Oxygen-rich atmosphere found on Saturn moon
- It's a Saturnian moonapalooza
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
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Amazing photography.
Actually, what it reminds *me* of are the planetary alignment scenes in "2001: A Space Odyssey."
Either way, extremely cool.
great photos from a very successful government program. Taxes spent wisely
Awesome! Seeing high quality photos of stellar objects makes the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. Just beautiful! The rings from this perspective are as flat as a sheet of paper, so does anyone know. What would happen to an object that tries to traverse the rings? Will it be annihilated or? I'm under the uneducated impression that the particles that make up the rings are traveling at extreme speeds, is this assumption correct?
Yes, you're correct. I watched the Universe series on Netflix, and there's an episode on Saturn and its rings. You'd really like it. Apparently, objects that collide with the ring material would most likely break apart and become part of the rings...altering, but not destroying them. The rings are moving closer to Saturn as they orbit, though, and in time the dust and rubble of which they are composed will fall to its surface. Not in our lifetime, of course.
I have the Universe series on DVD (very cool stuff, hours upon hours of space nerd heaven). There are some wonderful things about Saturn in the Universe series. A few cool things to know: The rings are paper thin, relatively speaking. They are on average about as thick as a two story house. But, that doesn't mean they are always flat.
In fact sometimes they are disturbed in such a way as to create mile high structures that create elongated shadows (if the Sun is in the right place). Cassini has seen this and there have been a few articles on the vine and MSNBC about it.
Another cool thing about the rings is that they are traveling at high velocities. The closer rings to the planet move faster than the outer rings. If you were to travel to the rings and move your space craft into them what happens then all depends on a few things. If you were to go in the same direction as the flow of ring particles and move at the same speed it would be much like heading home on the freeway. All the cars are moving very fast relative to the freeway but relative to one another they are practically standing still.
So, one could move into the rings in such a way and do examinations of the ring particles (assuming you've figured everything else out about space travel - like protecting against radiation). But If you were to enter the rings at a different angle and go against the flow of ring particles you'd be making a huge mistake and your craft would very likely take a great deal of damage. Meteors or comets that do this could break up and become ring material themselves. There is still MUCH we do not know about the rings of the gas giants, particularly Saturn.
Many thought the rings were created at the same time that Saturn was created but scientists have evidence that puts the rings age at about a couple hundred million years old. And since Saturn is more than 4 billion years old, the rings are relatively new (in the grand scheme of things). Certainly some very wonderful photos. Cassini is an amazing spacecraft and I applaud the Cassini team for all their hard work!
You know, it almost looks like Saturn's rings are casting a shadow on Dione's souther region.
"Open the pod bay door, HAL."
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that."
I wan't sure it was real!!...imagine the foresight the mission planners must of had to know when and how to point the camera and snap the picture, it takes almost eight hous to get a signal to mars one way. This being so much further, really makes the whole process an art! Some how I doubt the mission planners are like me, point and shoot as much as possible then weed through the debris to see if, by luck, something worthwhile was snapped....no, somehow I doubt they do that.....if they did, one of them better run out and buy a lotter ticket asap. Dione looks invitingly habitable....in the shot at least....if extraterristials ever came into this solar system and spent some time poking around, the saturanian system surely would of been where they spent the most time. I bet the system is quite special amongst all the statistical probabilities of just this arm of the galaxy, almost as special as finding ugly bags of water moving about. (yea, I know, cheap star trek plug, but I could'nt help it)
Hiya Ray!
A minor correction to an otherwise excellent post, if I may?
I like you point on light (and radio) travel time to Mars; but rather than 8 hours, when Mars is at its farthest away from Earth, its 21 minutes. At its closest Mars is only about 5 light minutes away.
For the rest of the Solar System (one-way, rounded off, using the average distance from Earth):
~ The Moon is almost 2 light SECONDS away, and is the only body in the Solar System with which we may directly converse
~ Mercury at its closest is about 6 light minutes away; at its farthest is 11 light minutes away
~ Venus ranges between 2 and 14 light minutes away
~ The Sun is about 8 light minutes away
~ Jupiter is 40 light minutes away
~ Saturn is 80 light minutes away
~ Uranus is 160 light minutes away (2 hours 40 minutes)
~ Neptune is 240 light minutes away (3 hours)
~ The PLANET Pluto is 320 light minutes away (5 hours 20 minutes)
~ The oh so wonderful Voyager 1 space probe, the farthest thing humanity has ever launched, is 16.13 light hours away. Send a message asking Voyager, "How is it going?" The rely comes back 32+ hours later, "I'm cold, can I come home now?" (Awkward...)
And this week the Pluto-bound New Horizons mission crossed the orbit of Uranus. (No where near Uranus, but as far away as Uranus.) Light travel time to New Horizons is 2.75 hours (one-way)
Cheers! ~Michael (AFM*Radio / Astronomy.FM)
Excellent facts, Michael. Thanx.
Astounding.
Just a breath-taking piece of photography. I can't imagine what it took to get everything in the right place to take such a picture. It makes me wish I could hop on a shuttle tomorrow and run out to the limits of the solar system on a little sight-seeing tour. I know it sounds juvenile and diminishes this great accomplishment, but there is a part of me that wants so badly to be out there and see it first hand. I want to know if there is life out there and I want know what they look like, sound like and what they do. I know I won't live long enough to get the answers to these questions and I find that very sad.
Thank you very much for sharing this image with us. Beautiful.
Hiya Skip!
I don't think your comment diminishes the accomplishment of the Cassini space probe. On the contrary, I have seen the Cassini team members on television talking about the pictures and video in much the same way. One of them (I believe it was Caroline Porco) said that she felt like she was standing on the observation deck of some space ship when she looks at this stuff (and she is the head of the Cassini team). What I wouldn't give to be on that sight-seeing tour of the solar system. To see such awe-inspiring, breathtaking, jaw-droppingly astounding sights with my own two eyes would be like heaven to me.
Hey Mob, very nice to hear from you. Yeah, I think I'd trade the rest of my life for one week of that tour.
And someday humans will be able to go out into the solar system and see first hand the wonders of the universe. But at 60, I'm not likely to be around to see the first humans walk on Mars, much less anything else.
I sure wish the Government would give it up and let ET out of whatever government lab they've got him locked away in and let the rest us of in on the secret :-)
Good to hear from you as always.
You never know, Skip. I wouldn't kiss "boots down on Mars" goodbye just yet. I' optimistic (perhaps overly so) that we'll send human beings there maybe as early as 2028. The ISS will likely be at the end of it's life and the international partners will be looking ahead to bigger and better things. And it's pretty damn tough to get "better" than the ISS (in my opinion). So, just try to live to be 90 or 100, that's all I'm saying. I'll be turning 30 in October, and in 2031 I will be 50 years old. If we aren't well on our way to sending the first humans to Mars by that point I will be very sad indeed. Between you and I, I'd rather go to the Moon and set up a Moonbase in this decade and prepare for the trip to Mars. I don't quite see the point in sending human beings to an asteroid. The flight logistics of that trip are interesting but I still vote for Mars.
As for trade the rest of my life for one week of the solar system tour... I'd agree to that but we'd have to have instant travel and the rest of that week would be simply staring at the sights.
If the government has ET locked up somewhere I wish they'd let us know about it. I can understand the thinking behind keeping that a secret (if it were indeed the case). I personally don't think the government is capable of orchestrating that kind of cover-up in today's information age. But if they could keep it a secret I'd love for them to unleash the truth on the world.
Well, 2028 will see my 78th birthday and life expectancy in my family is just about that on the average so I'm not making any big plans beyond 75, but I hope you're right.
Oh, I agree, I don't think the Government has a secret "Area 51" type alien storage facility with ET, or his remains and the remainder of his space ship. But if they do, LET HIM OUT, I WANNA SEE HIM!
Hence, the reason why I very strongly want to go back to school and major in space science - become a particle or astrophysicist. This is where our future lies; it's where we need to invest.
This planet, at the current rate it's going, will not live the span it would otherwise unless left unhindered by man.