The moon on the left moved a lot during the three images this was done with - so it was a big of a botch-job to create that, but I really like it

Doug

That is absolutely the craziest Cassini image yet... seems like they just keep getting crazier.

Absolutely beautiful. The moon on the left has a blusih tint. Interesting that the rings have a fuzzied outline. How close are we to the plane of the rings? I suspect that we are at a slight angle so we are seeing the near and far edge of the rings and not a fuzzy thickness.

--Bill

Doug,

have you got a bigger version of that image? I see my new desktop.....

Chris

Nope - that is as big as it gets. They were 1024 x 1024 obviosuly, but that's simply a crop from that - there's just black around the outside

I actually resized it 200% to better align the channels, then resize back down to the size you see there - but that's all there is imagesize wize.

Doug

But the 1024 x 1024 version would still have the rings all the way across...

Told you we might drop a few posts on the way in the move.... it's a bit slow at the moment but that should improve





Doug

Those are, left to right, Rhea, Dione, and Mimas, right?

Dont look at me - I havnt got a clue

Doug

Yes, that's what the NASA website says.

Here an interesting steregram of Saturn+Ring (crossed eyes, start images are W00005976 and 5989):

Its been almost a year now of Cassini Saturn images (approach & post SOI), and I keep thinking I've missed something...

While many of the ring & moon images are truly breathtaking... I don't recall seeing anything mentioned at the press conferences or on the Cassini web site regarding those "dark radial ring spokes" that were discovered during the Voyager flybys. The initial mystery was that any radial feature in the rings should be quickly spread out by the differential rotation rates between the inner portion orbiting faster than the outer region. I know the thinking now is that they were produced by dust above the ring plane held in the magnetic field.

Has anyone heard any news about them from Cassini, let alone any images?

RedSky

From what I have read, that is because they have been absent. There has been some speculation that this is due to the high tilt of the ring plane toward the sun right now. As Saturn moves increasingly toward an edge on configuration, it will be interesting to see if the spokes seen by Voyager and HST reappear.

The rings are back in view now :

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=36561

Bizzare patterns in the F Ring/Prometheus and Pandora:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=37451

That's not bizzare, its merely a couple of aliens playing a game of pong with the F ring.

This is enhanced version, clearly showing wath should be the mechanism of fabrication of "density waves" in the F ring:

In fact, image was taken immediately after alignment between Pandora and Prometheus (the two super-exposed spots outside and inside the ring, respectively).
Combined tidal pull from the two moons creates a void in the inner part of the F ring, which then evolve in a spiral structure due to differential rotation.
The other two spiral strucutres visible in the lower portion if this image and more evident other imoages from this sequence (like http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...iImageID=37522),
are "fossils" from previous alignment events, which should occour every abot 39 rotations of ring-F material (about every 24 days) and should be separated by 9 degree each other.
This is another great example of the incredible gravitational Luna Park offered by Saturn system! I would like to simulate these formations, anyone expert of n-body simulations?
Marco.

Looks like they shot an F ring movie. Looking forward to the ani-gif or QT movie.

Yes, is a long "film" but there are some time "holes"...
Anyway, here a couple of short sub-sequences (click to see animation):

Cheers Dilo.

Do someone can explain real nature of structures visible in this image? I'm referring to "waves" in the inner limit of the gap:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...0/N00033700.jpg
Are they real density waves or simply image/sensor artifacts (like aliasing)...?
they are visible only in the right portion of previous image:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...0/N00033699.jpg
and seems to disappear in the next one:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...0/N00033768.jpg
moreover, last image is a little bit disappointing, it seems truncated in the lower portion...

Unfortunately, the images on the JPL Raw images no longer represent all the images being returned. For example, the images you point to was part of a sequence with 250 images and more. So the image that explains what causes those waves isn't in there. I don't think this is deliberate, but is annoying. Not sure who at JPL I need to pester to fix this. We use the JPL raw images page to point to our images out side the team, or when we are at home and can't use the internal mechanism.

So there is an explaination....

Well, hopefully someone gets pestered so this gets fixed soon. This is an extremely frustrating problem. For example I'd love to see the 32 missing images of Mimas. And hopefully at least some of the new Tethys images show up.

I'll give this a try: There is a moon orbiting in the gap ( I don't remember its name right now) it orbit is slightly elliptical. When it makes its closest approach to the ring the tides caused by its gravity makes a little dent. Its orbital period nearly matches so you get a series of dents, one from each close approach, which slowly smear out.

You're thinking of the Encke Gap and Pan:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=39038
The Encke gap is at top. near the outer edge of the A ring is the Keeler Gap, which is what Dilo is pointing to. However, prior observations of the Keeler Gap have led to speculation that the Keeler Gap may also be tended by a so-far undiscovered moon:
http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/view.php?id=867
The waves seen in these latest images appear to be similar to those seen on the inner edge of the Encke Gap shortly after SOI:
http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/view.php?id=248
again suggesting that an unseen moon is in the Keeler gap.

So some of the more interesting images are being withheld from public release?

Welcome to JPL.

I don't think it was intentional, I think they just have a bug in the program they are using to get the images from the feed. This started in mid-April and hasn't been fixed yet...

In case you are wondering, even I haven't seen the latest Tethys images so there doesn't appear to be anything wrong there, yet...

Warped F Ring:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=39871

Looks like it's part of a time lapse sequence too.

Twelve new moons discovered around Saturn

"Astronomers have spotted 12 tiny new moons circling Saturn. The observations could help scientists understand how such satellites become snagged by gas giants.

A team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii and the Carnegie Institute of Washington first spotted the dozen using the Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii on 12 December 2004. Their observations were part of a broader hunt for irregular moons - so-called because their orbit is far from circular or highly inclined with respect to their planet’s equatorial plane.

They made follow-up observations from January to March 2005 with the Keck Telescope, Gemini North and Subaru and reported their results to a mailing list on Tuesday.

The new finds double the number of irregular moons orbiting Saturn and brings the total to 46. Eleven of the 12 new moons orbit in a retrograde orbit - opposite to the rotation of the planet."

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7344

Still no images of Tethys (I wonder if they are on the ground now) but some new images of the rings - however, I think there should be more. If the Tethys images do not show up, assuming they were received we may not see them until several weeks from now (at the CICLOPS site) or even not until a year from now (at the PDS)

Ummm, they are not on the ground yet... I'm getting concerned.

Maybe they didnt take any pictures after all....... I believe these orbits are designed to study the rings?

Then a small movie (cannot resist!) - click to see animation! :

Expect something on this today....

EDIT: Okay, maybe not today. Maybe Monday. JPL

Hyperion again: http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/view.php?id=971

Can't wait to see it up close.

Two wonderful Saturn images taken on May 04, 2005 from approximately 1.2 MKm.
Thi is a rgb "real color" combination:

and this a M3 (methan filter) mosaic:

enjoy!

I thought this delay was because of the IAU Circular needed to announced S/ 2005 S 1, but now I see that this delay is once again caused by JPL.

BTW, the IAU Circular 8524 on May 6th announced S/ 2005 S 1. Don't have the text of this yet. If anyone does, please post it here. The IAU Circular page is back up (though you still need a password to read the circulars, http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/RecentIAUCs.html ).

Info I can say because I am sure it is in the circular is that S/ 2005 S 1 is a newly discovered satellite of Saturn discovered by Cassini ISS. This new satellite, ~7.5 km across, was first found on May 1. S/ 2005 S 1 is located within the Keeler Gap of the outer A ring.

C. C. Porco, CICLOPS, Space Science Institute, Boulder; and the Cassini Imaging Science Team report the discovery of a new satellite of Saturn, designated S/2005 S 1, orbiting within the Keeler gap in Saturn's outer A ring. (The object had been previously inferred from the presence of features observed on the outer edge of the Keeler gap; cf. Porco et al. 2005, Science 307, 1226, Fig. 10). The object was discovered in six images taken over 16 min on May 1 from a time-lapse sequence of 0.180-s narrow-angle-camera exposures that were targeted to the illuminated side of the outer edge of the A ring (with phase angle about 33 deg and image scale 6.9 km/pixel). S/2005 S 1 was subsequently found in 32 (7 km/pixel) low-phase images taken of the F ring on Apr. 13 (spanning 18 min) and again in two high-resolution (3.54 km/pixel) low-phase images taken on May 2, when its 7-km disk was resolved. The satellite orbits Saturn every 0.594 day at a distance of 136500 km. The estimated geometric albedo is 0.5. The data are too coarse to yield any statistically significant orbital eccentricity or inclination.

Is this it?
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...0/N00031664.jpg
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...0/N00031659.jpg
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...0/N00031656.jpg
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...0/N00031653.jpg

Yep, that's it. Hopefully some better views will be released this week. It better.

I will put together something tomorrow morning on my blog now that I know how far I can go.

It seems rather obvious in those images, why wasn't it discovered then instead of on May 1? Did everyone assume it was Pan like I did at first when looking for it in those images?

So what is the holdup with this release? Images were certainly released sooner after other flybys? Is there some sort of discovery or important finding (besides this new moon), or is it just a "run of the mill" image release?

It is a rather small moon. Most likely we are now just starting to stare at the rings for a long enough time span with high enough resolution in order to observe this moon.

As noted earlier, this moon is not completely unexpected.

Well, as I said earlier, I thought the hold up was the IAU Circular which would need to announce the new moon first. But now I suspect it is just JPL. Unfortunately, I have very little connections with the small satellite portion of the team, and only really care about these little guys when one is discovered or we starting seeing surface features (a la Phoebe or Epimetheus).

it might be a problem with the JPL RAW site...there's very little being posted at all at the moment (maybe they just aren't taking many pics at the moment), but some of the links to the pictures are broken too.

This has nothing to do with the RAW images, this is about the image release...

A major new find, just announced on Jason's blog: Cassini has found the tiny moon responsible for the Keeler Gap:
http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/2005/05/ne...te-s-2005-s-1.h
tml .

Just as with Pan in the Encke Gap, they were confident it was there on the grounds of indirect observations of its gravity wake in the Gap's edges -- and, sure enough, here it is.

Let's try that URL again:

http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/2005/05/ne...s-2005-s-1.html

OK, let's try it a third time:

http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/2005/05/ne...s-2005-s-1.html