|
|
 |
|
|
Dec 31, 2008: A Year of Splendor - In its four years of flying sentry at Saturn, Cassini has borne witness to the changes of season and the transformations they have brought to the face of the planet, the appearance of its rings, and the onset of eclipses of its many moons ... all documented in the set of heavenly sights being released today to celebrate the close of 2008.
|
| |
Captain's Log
November 1, 2008
Greetings to all you fellow travelers!
We on  Cassini are very happy to report that we have just successfully put behind us one more major milestone in this remarkable adventure: an acutely close flyby of the icy moon Enceladus.
Another bold dip over the south pole of Enceladus on Halloween and another skillful setup for imaging the moon `on the fly' have brought us another bounty of positively glorious views of one of the most fabulous places in the solar system.
On this run, we have captured, by design, jet source locales on the tiger stripes crossing the south polar terrain that we didn't catch during our first 'skeet shoot' maneuver back in August -- sources VI and VII on and near the Baghdad fracture -- and we have repeated our imaging of II and III on Damascus. In all, we've now seen at very high resolution (tens of meters per pixel) sources I, II, III, V, VI, and VII. 
And of course, as before, we note that the region surrounding the active tiger stripes is finely-fractured throughout and littered with icy blocks.
It will be another year before we encounter Enceladus up close again. The sun will be disappearing from the south pole throughout that time, so that by next year we will have a far dimmer view of a shrinking illuminated portion of the tiger stripe terrain.
So, take your fill now of this fabulous place at the southern tip of this small enigmatic moon because it will be a very, very long time before you see it like this again.
Carolyn Porco
Cassini Imaging Team Leader
CICLOPS
Boulder, CO
|
| Captain's Log: A Year of Splendor | | December 31, 2008 | Today we conclude another year in our excursion through the Saturnian environment ... a year that brought Cassini's prime mission to successful completion and saw the start of its 2-year `Equinox' mission around the ringed planet.
more... |
| Captain's Log: Mission Accomplished! | | June 30, 2008 | In late 1990, a collection of hundreds of scientists and as many engineers across the US and Europe were assembled together and given the charge to undertake a far-sighted interplanetary expedition of enormous scope and reach.
more... |
| Captain's Log: Diving Over Enceladus | | March 26, 2008 | Our run of daring tactical maneuvers over the surface of Enceladus to uncover as much as we can about this strange beast began two weeks ago, and today we learn what came of that encounter.
more... |
| Captain's Log: Holiday Greetings 2007 | | December 24, 2007 | So another year around Saturn is coming to a close, and by anyone's measure it has been a momentous time of adventure and revelation.
more... |
| Captain's Log: Cassini's Diamond Anniversary | | October 15, 2007 | Ten years ago today, like a great mythological bird rising in brilliant magnificence from its funeral pyre, a mighty Titan IV rocket, equipped to scale the gravity binding it and its precious cargo to Earth, leapt with a deafening roar from Cape Canaveral's Launch Pad 40 on a pillar of orange flames, veered gracefully towards the east, and quickly receded into the black of night.
more... |
| Captain's Log: The Wetlands of Titan | | March 15, 2007 | Will the wonders in this distant corner of our solar system ever cease? In recent months, our travels have taken us to realms around Saturn never before visited by spacefaring vehicles, showing us vistas never before seen by human eyes.
more... |
| Captain's Log: A Year of Surveillance | | December 29, 2006 | As another year in Saturn orbit, and sixteen additional revolutions around the planet, come to a close, we look back on the spoils of 2006, a Year of Surveillance, when we dove in close and enjoyed repeated looks at the bodies and phenomena we discovered during our first 1.5 years around the ringed planet.
more... |
| Captain's Log: Total Eclipse of the Sun ... and a Pale Blue Orb | | September 19, 2006 | In its ceaseless wanderings around Saturn over the last two years, Cassini has delighted us Earthlings with ever-changing vistas of Saturn and its collection of rings and moons. Today, we are treated to a rare view of the Saturnian system like we've never seen it before.
more... |
More Captain's Logs
Website credits
|
|
|
