The icy, cratered surface of Saturn's moon Dione shows more than just its sunlit side in these two processed versions of the same image.
The view at left, with only mild enhancement, shows a romantic crescent with large craters visible. The contrast in the version at the right has been greatly enhanced to show the side of Dione lit faintly by reflected light from Saturn. A similar phenomenon can be seen from Earth, when the Moon's dark side is visible due to "earthshine." The crater at the top of the image appears to have a sunlit central peak in the enhanced view - a common characteristic of craters on Dione as seen in Voyager images. Slight variations in brightness on the moon's dark side hint at the bright curved linear streaks, seen by Voyager. These streaks are thought to be deposits of water ice
Iapetus, the two-faced moon also gets a new photo
Quote:
The moon with the split personality, Iapetus, presents a puzzling appearance. One hemisphere of the moon is very dark, while the other is very bright. Whether the moon is being coated by foreign material or being resurfaced by material from within is not yet known.
Iapetus' diameter is about one third that of our own moon at 1,436 kilometers (892 miles). The latest image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on July 3, 2004, from a distance of 3 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Iapetus (pronounced eye-APP-eh-tuss).
The brightness variations in this image are not due to shadowing, they are real. The face of Iapetus visible was observed at a Sun-Iapetus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 10 degrees. The image scale is 18 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. The image was magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.
Titan fans are inside 100 days to the next flyby and dose of data, then another 60 days of itching for Huygens Xmas-eve release.
Ring junkies might tip their hats to this rakish new view.
Quote:
This dramatic view of Saturn?s rings draped by the shadow of Saturn, shows brightness variations that correspond to differences in the concentration of the ring particles as they orbit the planet.
The planet?s western limb is visible in the upper right corner. Three of Saturn?s moons can be seen here: Bright Enceladus (499 kilometers, or 310 miles across) is visible near lower right; Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across) appears at center left; and interior to the F ring, near the top of the image, is Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across). The F ring, the outermost ring shown here, displays several knot-like features near the left side of the image.
The image was taken in visible light by the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on July 3, 2004, from a distance of 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Saturn, at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 108 degrees. This is the first processed wide angle camera image to be released since Cassini?s encounter with Jupiter in 2000. The image scale is 87 kilometers (54 miles) per pixel.
Messenger is due for launch to Mercury near the end of the month, so I'll have to start another thread. \
On Tuesday, Oct. 26, Cassini will pass within 1,200 km (746 miles) of Saturn's giant moon Titan. The historic flyby will be the closest approach to Titan to date. NASA TV coverage begins Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m. (PST).
This image taken on Oct. 24, 2004, reveals Titan's bright "continent-sized" terrain known as Xanadu. It was acquired with the narrow angle camera on Cassini's imaging science subsystem through a spectral filter centered at 938 nanometers, a wavelength region at which Titan's surface can be most easily detected. The surface is seen at a higher contrast than in previously released imaging science subsystem images due to a lower phase angle (Sun-Titan-Cassini angle), which minimizes scattering by the haze.
The image shows details about 10 times smaller than those seen from Earth. Surface materials with different brightness properties (or albedos) rather than topographic shading are highlighted. The image has been calibrated and slightly enhanced for contrast. It will be further processed to reduce atmospheric blurring and to optimize mapping of surface features. The origin and geography of Xanadu remain mysteries at this range. Bright features near the south pole (bottom) are clouds. On Oct. 26, Cassini will acquire images of features in the central-left portion of this image from a position about 100 times closer.
From here among a few new Titan shots released today
Expecting much better tonight. Maybe even 100 times better.
Shown here are two images of the expected landing site of Cassini's Huygens' probe (latitude 10.6 S, longitude 191 W). At right is a wide-angle image showing most of Titan's disc, with a scale of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) per pixel. At left is a narrow-angle image of the landing site at a scale of 0.83 kilometers (.5 miles) per pixel (location shown by black box at right). North is tilted about 45 degrees from the top of both images. The surface has bright and dark markings with a streamlined pattern consistent with motion from a fluid, such as the atmosphere, moving from west to east (upper left to lower right). The image at left is 400 kilometers (249 miles) wide. Both images were taken by Cassini's imaging science subsystem through near-infrared filters.
False colour VIMS images of the same areas in Infrared
Quote:
This image taken by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer clearly shows surface features on Titan. It is a composite of false-color images taken at three infrared wavelengths: 2 microns (blue); 2.7 microns (red); and 5 microns (green). A methane cloud can be seen at the south pole (bottom of image). This picture was obtained as Cassini flew by Titan at altitudes ranging from 100,000 to 140,000 kilometers (88,000 to 63,000 miles), less than two hours before the spacecraft's closest approach. The inset picture shows the landing site of Cassini's piggybacked Huygens probe.
Radar results this morning didn't cover the same area, but in the Northern hemisphere swath of 100km x 2000km they captured yesterday, the altimetry results showed less than a 50m variation in elevation... pretty flat surface they said.
More data should come out tomorrow. There was some fascinating chemistry stuff discussed this morning about the propensity for polymerization of certain hydrocarbons into other chains, sometimes 'metallic', sometimes 'white', and sometimes 'black' to certain instruments, but I would have liked to have heard more on how/why certain transformations occur.
Where in the atmosphere seems important, but Titan is somewhat unusual in that it passes in and out of Saturn's magnetosphere periodically in its orbit and is sometimes fully exposed to the solar wind, while at other times benefits from shielding against certain cosmic emissions and potentially mutagenic radiation.
Yesterday's results from scooping a sample of Titan's atmosphere.
Quote:
This graph shows data acquired by Cassini as it flew by Titan at an altitude of 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) on Oct. 26, 2004 - its closet approach yet to the hazy moon. The data is from Cassini's ion and neutral mass spectrometer, which detects charged and neutral particles in the atmosphere. The graph reveals a diversity of hydrocarbons in the high atmosphere above Titan, including benzene and diacetylene.
Still more questions than answers, but it's sure fascinating.
Uh, Titan is crucial to understanding organic chemistry similar to what might have been found on the early Earth. It's the best candidate for studying early Earth, in that regard.
Titan may help us understand phenomena like the Ozone Hole in new ways.
It will certainly teach us new things about hydrocarbons and atmospheres.
Some of this knowledge may have demonstrable benefit here despite your short term view.
Best image(s) by Nov 28th win a trip to Germany to watch Huygens descent live at ESA control.
Quote:
How to enter
Create an artwork representing what you imagine Titan looks like underneath its haze, based on your perspective on Huygens' journey. Are you viewing the moon from the air after Huygens breaks through the cloud or on the surface after the craft has parachuted to a landing? Did Huygens land on solid ground or is she floating in an ethane sea? Send us your vision of what lies beneath the veil when you imagine Titan.
Once you have finished your artwork you can enter the contest online. You do not need to mail your work, just create it on the computer, take a digital photo or scan your artwork. However, if you are not able to enter the contest digitally, you can also mail it to us. _
_
Contest questions and answers
_
Who can enter?
Anyone aged 10 and above may enter either in the youth section (aged 10-17) or the adult section (18 and over).
What kind of art can I create?
You can use any medium to create your artwork and then send us a digital image through the online entry form. You can also mail your art to us but please note that it should be no larger than 2.5 x 28 x 43 cm (1 x 11 x 17 inches) and that we cannot return artwork.
When does the contest end?
28 November 2004 at 23:59 Pacific time
What can I win?
The Grand Prize is a trip to Darmstadt, Germany to be on site at ESA's Operations Centre for the descent of the Huygens probe. There are also four first prizes (two for both sections) and up to 20 second prizes. The Grand Prize Winner will be chosen from among the first prize winners.
All the winning artwork will be displayed at ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) during the Huygens mission to Titan and winners will all receive a Planetary Society prize package. This contains: one year's free Planetary Society membership; a Certificate of Honour; a Cassini-Huygens Mission Patch; an ESA poster, pin and keychain; and a 'Nine Planets' lithograph set.
In addition, two special prizes (one in each section) will be awarded for the artwork that most closely resembles any part of the image of the Titan panoramic landscape taken by the Huygens probe during its final descent. These awards, a framed and autographed Huygens photo of the Titan landscape, will be made within 30 days of the return of the actual Titan image data.
Mailing address for postal entries
Huygens Art Contest
The Planetary Society
65 N Catalina Ave.
Pasadena
CA 91106
USA
Get your paints and pixels going, ladies and gentlemen of artistic bent.
It is remotely possible you might even get a bit of Titan named after you.
In a splendid portrait created by light and gravity, Saturn's lonely moon Mimas is seen against the cool, blue-streaked backdrop of Saturn's northern hemisphere. Delicate shadows cast by the rings arc gracefully across the planet, fading into darkness on Saturn's night side.
The part of the atmosphere seen here appears darker and more bluish than the warm brown and gold hues seen in Cassini images of the southern hemisphere, due to preferential scattering of blue wavelengths by the cloud-free upper atmosphere.
The bright blue swath near Mimas (398 kilometers, or 247 miles across) is created by sunlight passing through the Cassini division (4,800 kilometers, or 2,980 miles wide). The rightmost part of this distinctive feature is slightly overexposed and therefore bright white in this image. Shadows of several thin ringlets within the division can be seen here as well. The dark band that stretches across the center of the image is the shadow of Saturn's B ring, the densest of the main rings. Part of the actual Cassini division appears at the bottom, along with the A ring and the narrow, outer F ring. The A ring is transparent enough that, from this viewing angle, the atmosphere and threadlike shadows cast by the inner C ring are visible through it.
Images taken with red, green and blue filters were combined to create this color view. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Nov. 7, 2004, at a distance of 3.7 million kilometers (2.3 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 22 kilometers (14 miles) per pixel.
Some fabulous new photos have been parked on the Cassini Gallery pages in the past week, including Iapetus and more Ring shots and more as we approach the Titan-B flyby 12/13 and Dione closest approach 12/15 on our way to the biggest event of the mission so far.
I'll be airborne for some of this on approach to the UK (explained in another thread), but will try to update again before Huygens probe release in two weeks.
Choice among the uploads are these two showing Prometheus mooching material and potentially causing more wake disturbances and perturbations in the F ring, and a quicktime movie called "Tilt and Whirl".
As it completed its first orbit of Saturn, Cassini zoomed in on the rings to catch this wondrous view of the shepherd moon Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) working its influence on the multi-stranded and kinked F ring.
The F ring resolves into five separate strands in this closeup view. Potato-shaped Prometheus is seen here, connected to the ringlets by a faint strand of material. Imaging scientists are not sure exactly how Prometheus is interacting with the F ring here, but they have speculated that the moon might be gravitationally pulling material away from the ring. The ringlets are disturbed in several other places. In some, discontinuities or "kinks" in the ringlets are seen; in others, gaps in the diffuse inner strands are seen. All these features appear to be due to the influence of Prometheus.
The image was taken in visible light with the narrow angle camera on Oct. 29, 2004, at a distance of about 782,000 kilometers (486,000 miles) from Prometheus and at a Sun-Prometheus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 147 degrees. The image scale is 4.7 kilometers (2.9 miles) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of two, and contrast was enhanced, to aid visibility.
Zigzagging kinks and knots dance around Saturn in this movie of the F ring from Cassini. From a great distance, as during Cassini's initial approach to Saturn in mid-2004, the F ring appears as a faint, knotted strand of material at the outer fringe of Saturn's immense ring system. From this close vantage point, just after the spacecraft rounded the planet to begin its second orbit, the F ring resolves into several ringlets with a bright central core. The core of the F ring is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) wide and is located at a distance of approximately 80,100 kilometers (49,800 miles) from Saturn's cloud tops.
Scientists have only a rough idea of the lifetime of features like knots and clumps in Saturn's rings, and studies of images, such as those comprising this movie, will help them piece together this story.
The view here is from Cassini's southern vantage point, below the ringplane. During the course of the movie sequence, Cassini was headed on a trajectory that took the spacecraft away from the planet and farther south, so that the rings appear to tilt farther upward. To help visualize this, note that the top portion of the F ring is closer to the spacecraft, while the bottom portion is farther away and curves around the far side of Saturn.
The movie consists of 44 frames taken three minutes apart, so that the span of time represented in the sequence is almost exactly two hours, or about one-eight of a Saturn rotation. The images that comprise this movie sequence were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Oct. 28, 2004, and at distances ranging from approximately 516,000 kilometers (321,000 miles) to 562,000 kilometers (349,000 miles). No enhancement was performed on the images.
Get ready for mainstream media coverage to ramp up in advance of the 12/26 Huygens release.
From its station nearly 1.2 billion kilometers (746 million miles) from Earth, the stalwart Cassini spacecraft sends holiday greetings to Earth with this lovely color portrait of Saturn and two of its moons.
The 2004 holiday season marks the close of a miraculous year that saw the end of Cassini's long journey across the solar system and the beginning of its adventures in orbit around Saturn. In a triumph of human achievement, the Cassini mission has already returned thousands of images and has begun to uncover the mysteries of the Saturn system. This color portrait serves as reminder of the Saturnian places we have already seen and the promise of future discovery at Titan when the European Space Agency's Huygens probe arrives at Titan on Jan. 14, 2005.
The image shows the majestic ringed planet, with bands of colorful clouds in its southern hemisphere. The planet's northern extremes have a cool bluish hue, due to scattering of blue wavelengths of sunlight by the cloud-free upper atmosphere there. Long shadows of the icy rings stretch across the north.
A grayish, oval-shaped storm is visible in Saturn's southern hemisphere and is easily 475 kilometers (295 miles) across - the size of some hurricanes on Earth.
Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) is visible near lower right with its thick, orange-colored atmosphere, and faint Mimas (398 kilometers, or 247 miles across) appears just right of the rings' outer edge.
Images taken in the red, green and blue filters with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on Dec. 14, 2004, were combined to create this color view at a distance of approximately 719,000 kilometers (447,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 43 kilometers (27 miles) per pixel.
This map illustrates the planned imaging coverage for the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer, onboard the European Space Agency's Huygens probe during the probe's descent toward Titan's surface on Jan. 14, 2005. The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer is one of two NASA instruments on the probe.
The colored lines delineate regions that will be imaged at different resolutions as the probe descends. On each map, the site where Huygens is predicted to land is marked with a yellow dot. This area is in a boundary between dark and bright regions.
This map was made from the images taken by the Cassini spacecraft cameras on Oct. 26, 2004, at image scales of 4 to 6 kilometers (2.5 to 3.7 miles) per pixel. The images were obtained using a narrow band filter centered at 938 nanometers - a near-infrared wavelength (invisible to the human eye) at which light can penetrate Titan's atmosphere to reach the surface and return through the atmosphere to be detected by the camera. The images have been processed to enhance surface details. Only brightness variations on Titan's surface are seen; the illumination is such that there is no shading due to topographic variations.
For about two hours, the probe will fall by parachute from an altitude of 160 kilometers (99 miles) to Titan's surface. During the descent the camera on the probe and five other science instruments will send data about the moon's atmosphere and surface back to the Cassini spacecraft for relay to Earth. The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer will take pictures as the probe slowly spins, and some these will be made into panoramic views of Titan's surface.
This map (PIA06172) shows the expected coverage by the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer side-looking imager and two downward-looking imagers - one providing medium-resolution and the other high-resolution coverage. The planned coverage by the medium- and high-resolution imagers is the subject of the second map (PIA06173).
Quote:
NASA TV/webcast will carry ESA TV during the Titan events.
Check the TV schedule for full details (all times listed are in Eastern Time).
Comments
God I hope this baby hangs together for the duration of the mission. The Titan lander could be so fucking amazing.
Thanks for keeping this up-to-date, 'burb.
ESA has a spiffy new "Where is Cassini Now" Flash animation
Dark side detail of Dione
The icy, cratered surface of Saturn's moon Dione shows more than just its sunlit side in these two processed versions of the same image.
The view at left, with only mild enhancement, shows a romantic crescent with large craters visible. The contrast in the version at the right has been greatly enhanced to show the side of Dione lit faintly by reflected light from Saturn. A similar phenomenon can be seen from Earth, when the Moon's dark side is visible due to "earthshine." The crater at the top of the image appears to have a sunlit central peak in the enhanced view - a common characteristic of craters on Dione as seen in Voyager images. Slight variations in brightness on the moon's dark side hint at the bright curved linear streaks, seen by Voyager. These streaks are thought to be deposits of water ice
Iapetus, the two-faced moon also gets a new photo
The moon with the split personality, Iapetus, presents a puzzling appearance. One hemisphere of the moon is very dark, while the other is very bright. Whether the moon is being coated by foreign material or being resurfaced by material from within is not yet known.
Iapetus' diameter is about one third that of our own moon at 1,436 kilometers (892 miles). The latest image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on July 3, 2004, from a distance of 3 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Iapetus (pronounced eye-APP-eh-tuss).
The brightness variations in this image are not due to shadowing, they are real. The face of Iapetus visible was observed at a Sun-Iapetus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 10 degrees. The image scale is 18 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. The image was magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.
Titan fans are inside 100 days to the next flyby and dose of data, then another 60 days of itching for Huygens Xmas-eve release.
Ring junkies might tip their hats to this rakish new view.
This dramatic view of Saturn?s rings draped by the shadow of Saturn, shows brightness variations that correspond to differences in the concentration of the ring particles as they orbit the planet.
The planet?s western limb is visible in the upper right corner. Three of Saturn?s moons can be seen here: Bright Enceladus (499 kilometers, or 310 miles across) is visible near lower right; Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across) appears at center left; and interior to the F ring, near the top of the image, is Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across). The F ring, the outermost ring shown here, displays several knot-like features near the left side of the image.
The image was taken in visible light by the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on July 3, 2004, from a distance of 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Saturn, at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 108 degrees. This is the first processed wide angle camera image to be released since Cassini?s encounter with Jupiter in 2000. The image scale is 87 kilometers (54 miles) per pixel.
Messenger is due for launch to Mercury near the end of the month, so I'll have to start another thread.
Tune in to Titan
On Tuesday, Oct. 26, Cassini will pass within 1,200 km (746 miles) of Saturn's giant moon Titan. The historic flyby will be the closest approach to Titan to date. NASA TV coverage begins Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m. (PST).
Originally posted by addabox
Mercury is a relatively short ride compared to Saturn, no?
Actually, Messenger is on a long, gravity assist trajectory and won't get to Mercury for 4+ years.
Originally posted by talksense101
...we might end up like locusts and leeches if we keep travelling from planet to planet just to consume it's resources.
Manifest Destiny. Oh yeah.
Cassini Eyes Titan's Xanadu - October 25, 2004
This image taken on Oct. 24, 2004, reveals Titan's bright "continent-sized" terrain known as Xanadu. It was acquired with the narrow angle camera on Cassini's imaging science subsystem through a spectral filter centered at 938 nanometers, a wavelength region at which Titan's surface can be most easily detected. The surface is seen at a higher contrast than in previously released imaging science subsystem images due to a lower phase angle (Sun-Titan-Cassini angle), which minimizes scattering by the haze.
The image shows details about 10 times smaller than those seen from Earth. Surface materials with different brightness properties (or albedos) rather than topographic shading are highlighted. The image has been calibrated and slightly enhanced for contrast. It will be further processed to reduce atmospheric blurring and to optimize mapping of surface features. The origin and geography of Xanadu remain mysteries at this range. Bright features near the south pole (bottom) are clouds. On Oct. 26, Cassini will acquire images of features in the central-left portion of this image from a position about 100 times closer.
From here among a few new Titan shots released today
Expecting much better tonight. Maybe even 100 times better.
Coming up on 4 hours to the Titan flyby webcast.
(All times are Pacific time)
Titan Flyby
NASA TV Coverage
- October 26, 6:30 pm
Post-Flyby Briefing
NASA TV Coverage
- October 27, 9:00 am
Science Briefing
NASA TV Coverage
- October 28, 9:00 am
Shown here are two images of the expected landing site of Cassini's Huygens' probe (latitude 10.6 S, longitude 191 W). At right is a wide-angle image showing most of Titan's disc, with a scale of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) per pixel. At left is a narrow-angle image of the landing site at a scale of 0.83 kilometers (.5 miles) per pixel (location shown by black box at right). North is tilted about 45 degrees from the top of both images. The surface has bright and dark markings with a streamlined pattern consistent with motion from a fluid, such as the atmosphere, moving from west to east (upper left to lower right). The image at left is 400 kilometers (249 miles) wide. Both images were taken by Cassini's imaging science subsystem through near-infrared filters.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
+ High resolution
+ View archive
False colour VIMS images of the same areas in Infrared
This image taken by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer clearly shows surface features on Titan. It is a composite of false-color images taken at three infrared wavelengths: 2 microns (blue); 2.7 microns (red); and 5 microns (green). A methane cloud can be seen at the south pole (bottom of image). This picture was obtained as Cassini flew by Titan at altitudes ranging from 100,000 to 140,000 kilometers (88,000 to 63,000 miles), less than two hours before the spacecraft's closest approach. The inset picture shows the landing site of Cassini's piggybacked Huygens probe.
Radar results this morning didn't cover the same area, but in the Northern hemisphere swath of 100km x 2000km they captured yesterday, the altimetry results showed less than a 50m variation in elevation... pretty flat surface they said.
More data should come out tomorrow. There was some fascinating chemistry stuff discussed this morning about the propensity for polymerization of certain hydrocarbons into other chains, sometimes 'metallic', sometimes 'white', and sometimes 'black' to certain instruments, but I would have liked to have heard more on how/why certain transformations occur.
Where in the atmosphere seems important, but Titan is somewhat unusual in that it passes in and out of Saturn's magnetosphere periodically in its orbit and is sometimes fully exposed to the solar wind, while at other times benefits from shielding against certain cosmic emissions and potentially mutagenic radiation.
Yesterday's results from scooping a sample of Titan's atmosphere.
This graph shows data acquired by Cassini as it flew by Titan at an altitude of 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) on Oct. 26, 2004 - its closet approach yet to the hazy moon. The data is from Cassini's ion and neutral mass spectrometer, which detects charged and neutral particles in the atmosphere. The graph reveals a diversity of hydrocarbons in the high atmosphere above Titan, including benzene and diacetylene.
Still more questions than answers, but it's sure fascinating.
We'll strip-mine other planets later.
Originally posted by mattjohndrow
EARTH FIRST!!!
We'll strip-mine other planets later.
Uh, Titan is crucial to understanding organic chemistry similar to what might have been found on the early Earth. It's the best candidate for studying early Earth, in that regard.
Titan may help us understand phenomena like the Ozone Hole in new ways.
It will certainly teach us new things about hydrocarbons and atmospheres.
Some of this knowledge may have demonstrable benefit here despite your short term view.
Originally posted by curiousuburb
Some of this knowledge may have demonstrable benefit here despite your short term view.
i was kidding...joke...i actually think the whole research project is rather cool.
Originally posted by mattjohndrow
i was kidding...joke...i actually think the whole research project is rather cool.
sorry. lack of sarcasm tags caught me on the wrong side of coffee.
Best image(s) by Nov 28th win a trip to Germany to watch Huygens descent live at ESA control.
How to enter
Create an artwork representing what you imagine Titan looks like underneath its haze, based on your perspective on Huygens' journey. Are you viewing the moon from the air after Huygens breaks through the cloud or on the surface after the craft has parachuted to a landing? Did Huygens land on solid ground or is she floating in an ethane sea? Send us your vision of what lies beneath the veil when you imagine Titan.
Once you have finished your artwork you can enter the contest online. You do not need to mail your work, just create it on the computer, take a digital photo or scan your artwork. However, if you are not able to enter the contest digitally, you can also mail it to us. _
_
Contest questions and answers
_
Who can enter?
Anyone aged 10 and above may enter either in the youth section (aged 10-17) or the adult section (18 and over).
What kind of art can I create?
You can use any medium to create your artwork and then send us a digital image through the online entry form. You can also mail your art to us but please note that it should be no larger than 2.5 x 28 x 43 cm (1 x 11 x 17 inches) and that we cannot return artwork.
When does the contest end?
28 November 2004 at 23:59 Pacific time
What can I win?
The Grand Prize is a trip to Darmstadt, Germany to be on site at ESA's Operations Centre for the descent of the Huygens probe. There are also four first prizes (two for both sections) and up to 20 second prizes. The Grand Prize Winner will be chosen from among the first prize winners.
All the winning artwork will be displayed at ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) during the Huygens mission to Titan and winners will all receive a Planetary Society prize package. This contains: one year's free Planetary Society membership; a Certificate of Honour; a Cassini-Huygens Mission Patch; an ESA poster, pin and keychain; and a 'Nine Planets' lithograph set.
In addition, two special prizes (one in each section) will be awarded for the artwork that most closely resembles any part of the image of the Titan panoramic landscape taken by the Huygens probe during its final descent. These awards, a framed and autographed Huygens photo of the Titan landscape, will be made within 30 days of the return of the actual Titan image data.
Mailing address for postal entries
Huygens Art Contest
The Planetary Society
65 N Catalina Ave.
Pasadena
CA 91106
USA
Get your paints and pixels going, ladies and gentlemen of artistic bent.
It is remotely possible you might even get a bit of Titan named after you.
Originally posted by curiousuburb
sorry. lack of sarcasm tags caught me on the wrong side of coffee.
I thought that was quite funny.
Thanks Curiousuburb for the updates!
Nature's Canvas
November 29, 2004
Full-Res: PIA06142
In a splendid portrait created by light and gravity, Saturn's lonely moon Mimas is seen against the cool, blue-streaked backdrop of Saturn's northern hemisphere. Delicate shadows cast by the rings arc gracefully across the planet, fading into darkness on Saturn's night side.
The part of the atmosphere seen here appears darker and more bluish than the warm brown and gold hues seen in Cassini images of the southern hemisphere, due to preferential scattering of blue wavelengths by the cloud-free upper atmosphere.
The bright blue swath near Mimas (398 kilometers, or 247 miles across) is created by sunlight passing through the Cassini division (4,800 kilometers, or 2,980 miles wide). The rightmost part of this distinctive feature is slightly overexposed and therefore bright white in this image. Shadows of several thin ringlets within the division can be seen here as well. The dark band that stretches across the center of the image is the shadow of Saturn's B ring, the densest of the main rings. Part of the actual Cassini division appears at the bottom, along with the A ring and the narrow, outer F ring. The A ring is transparent enough that, from this viewing angle, the atmosphere and threadlike shadows cast by the inner C ring are visible through it.
Images taken with red, green and blue filters were combined to create this color view. The images were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Nov. 7, 2004, at a distance of 3.7 million kilometers (2.3 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 22 kilometers (14 miles) per pixel.
I'll be airborne for some of this on approach to the UK (explained in another thread), but will try to update again before Huygens probe release in two weeks.
Choice among the uploads are these two showing Prometheus mooching material and potentially causing more wake disturbances and perturbations in the F ring, and a quicktime movie called "Tilt and Whirl".
Thieving Moon
December 3, 2004 _ Full-Res: PIA06143
As it completed its first orbit of Saturn, Cassini zoomed in on the rings to catch this wondrous view of the shepherd moon Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) working its influence on the multi-stranded and kinked F ring.
The F ring resolves into five separate strands in this closeup view. Potato-shaped Prometheus is seen here, connected to the ringlets by a faint strand of material. Imaging scientists are not sure exactly how Prometheus is interacting with the F ring here, but they have speculated that the moon might be gravitationally pulling material away from the ring. The ringlets are disturbed in several other places. In some, discontinuities or "kinks" in the ringlets are seen; in others, gaps in the diffuse inner strands are seen. All these features appear to be due to the influence of Prometheus.
The image was taken in visible light with the narrow angle camera on Oct. 29, 2004, at a distance of about 782,000 kilometers (486,000 miles) from Prometheus and at a Sun-Prometheus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 147 degrees. The image scale is 4.7 kilometers (2.9 miles) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of two, and contrast was enhanced, to aid visibility.
Tilt and Whirl
December 3, 2004 _ Full-Res: PIA06144 _ QuickTime (1.7 MB)
Zigzagging kinks and knots dance around Saturn in this movie of the F ring from Cassini. From a great distance, as during Cassini's initial approach to Saturn in mid-2004, the F ring appears as a faint, knotted strand of material at the outer fringe of Saturn's immense ring system. From this close vantage point, just after the spacecraft rounded the planet to begin its second orbit, the F ring resolves into several ringlets with a bright central core. The core of the F ring is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) wide and is located at a distance of approximately 80,100 kilometers (49,800 miles) from Saturn's cloud tops.
Scientists have only a rough idea of the lifetime of features like knots and clumps in Saturn's rings, and studies of images, such as those comprising this movie, will help them piece together this story.
The view here is from Cassini's southern vantage point, below the ringplane. During the course of the movie sequence, Cassini was headed on a trajectory that took the spacecraft away from the planet and farther south, so that the rings appear to tilt farther upward. To help visualize this, note that the top portion of the F ring is closer to the spacecraft, while the bottom portion is farther away and curves around the far side of Saturn.
The movie consists of 44 frames taken three minutes apart, so that the span of time represented in the sequence is almost exactly two hours, or about one-eight of a Saturn rotation. The images that comprise this movie sequence were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Oct. 28, 2004, and at distances ranging from approximately 516,000 kilometers (321,000 miles) to 562,000 kilometers (349,000 miles). No enhancement was performed on the images.
Get ready for mainstream media coverage to ramp up in advance of the 12/26 Huygens release.
True colour Cassini picture of the week... Saturn, Titan, and (hard to spot) Mimas.
Cassini's Holiday Greetings
December 24, 2004 Full-Res: PIA06164
From its station nearly 1.2 billion kilometers (746 million miles) from Earth, the stalwart Cassini spacecraft sends holiday greetings to Earth with this lovely color portrait of Saturn and two of its moons.
The 2004 holiday season marks the close of a miraculous year that saw the end of Cassini's long journey across the solar system and the beginning of its adventures in orbit around Saturn. In a triumph of human achievement, the Cassini mission has already returned thousands of images and has begun to uncover the mysteries of the Saturn system. This color portrait serves as reminder of the Saturnian places we have already seen and the promise of future discovery at Titan when the European Space Agency's Huygens probe arrives at Titan on Jan. 14, 2005.
The image shows the majestic ringed planet, with bands of colorful clouds in its southern hemisphere. The planet's northern extremes have a cool bluish hue, due to scattering of blue wavelengths of sunlight by the cloud-free upper atmosphere there. Long shadows of the icy rings stretch across the north.
A grayish, oval-shaped storm is visible in Saturn's southern hemisphere and is easily 475 kilometers (295 miles) across - the size of some hurricanes on Earth.
Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) is visible near lower right with its thick, orange-colored atmosphere, and faint Mimas (398 kilometers, or 247 miles across) appears just right of the rings' outer edge.
Images taken in the red, green and blue filters with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on Dec. 14, 2004, were combined to create this color view at a distance of approximately 719,000 kilometers (447,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 43 kilometers (27 miles) per pixel.
Go Huygens!
January 11, 2005 Full-Res: PIA06172
This map illustrates the planned imaging coverage for the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer, onboard the European Space Agency's Huygens probe during the probe's descent toward Titan's surface on Jan. 14, 2005. The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer is one of two NASA instruments on the probe.
The colored lines delineate regions that will be imaged at different resolutions as the probe descends. On each map, the site where Huygens is predicted to land is marked with a yellow dot. This area is in a boundary between dark and bright regions.
This map was made from the images taken by the Cassini spacecraft cameras on Oct. 26, 2004, at image scales of 4 to 6 kilometers (2.5 to 3.7 miles) per pixel. The images were obtained using a narrow band filter centered at 938 nanometers - a near-infrared wavelength (invisible to the human eye) at which light can penetrate Titan's atmosphere to reach the surface and return through the atmosphere to be detected by the camera. The images have been processed to enhance surface details. Only brightness variations on Titan's surface are seen; the illumination is such that there is no shading due to topographic variations.
For about two hours, the probe will fall by parachute from an altitude of 160 kilometers (99 miles) to Titan's surface. During the descent the camera on the probe and five other science instruments will send data about the moon's atmosphere and surface back to the Cassini spacecraft for relay to Earth. The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer will take pictures as the probe slowly spins, and some these will be made into panoramic views of Titan's surface.
This map (PIA06172) shows the expected coverage by the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer side-looking imager and two downward-looking imagers - one providing medium-resolution and the other high-resolution coverage. The planned coverage by the medium- and high-resolution imagers is the subject of the second map (PIA06173).
NASA TV/webcast will carry ESA TV during the Titan events.
Check the TV schedule for full details (all times listed are in Eastern Time).
January 13, Thursday
10:55 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. - Huygens Final Status News Conference From ESA
January 14, Friday
3 a.m. - Live Coverage Begins
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. - Huygens Probe News Briefing (will confirm if data is being received)
5 p.m. - 6 p.m. - ESA Commentary and "Presentation of First Triplet Image of/data from Titan"
January 15, Saturday
5 a.m. - 6 a.m. - ESA News Briefing "Early Look at Science Results"
I know what I'll be watching this weekend.
I am so glued to the screen.
Originally posted by curiousuburb
Planetary Society/ESA Announce: Titan Art Contest
Best image(s) by Nov 28th win a trip to Germany to watch Huygens descent live at ESA control.
-snip-
Get your paints and pixels going, ladies and gentlemen of artistic bent.
It is remotely possible you might even get a bit of Titan named after you.
Winners Announced