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Mar 3, 2010: Helene Rev127 Flyby Raw Preview - These raw, unprocessed images of Saturn's moon Helene were taken on March 3, 2010. |
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Mar 3, 2010: Rhea Rev 127 Flyby Raw Preview - These raw, unprocessed images of Saturn's moon Rhea were taken on March 2, 2010. |
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Feb 23, 2010: Forest of Jets - Cassini's close flyby of Enceladus last Nov. 21 revealed a forest of new jets spraying from the prominent fractures crossing the south polar region and yielded the most detailed temperature map to date. (News release can be found here.) |
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Captain's Log
March 23, 2009
We are almost there. Saturn and we, its companions, have journeyed together now for nearly five years, in a circumnavigation of the outer solar system. Like Earth, Saturn is tilted with respect to its orbital motion and hence blessed with changing seasons, as the Sun's position, seen from Saturn, varies from north to south and back again over the course of a Saturnian year.  In four and a half months' time, we will arrive at equinox, one of two special places in Saturn's orbit when the Sun's position in the sky at noon is exactly aligned with the plane that coincides with the equator and its rings. At that time, in mid-August, the Sun will transit from the southern to the northern hemisphere. It will be northern vernal equinox on Saturn ... the start of northern spring.
Since our arrival in mid-2004, we have watched the shadows of the planet's rings and moons slowly slip southward as the Sun has steadily marched northward. In January, in a sure sign that the equinox season had begun, the shadows of Saturn's moons slipped off the planet and onto its rings. In anticipation of this event, sequences of images were designed and executed to capture the motions of these dancing shadows ... a remarkable sight that is not even possible here in the inner solar system where the terrestrial planets are unadorned with rings.
From now until August, big visual changes will come to this place. The shadows of the rings on the planet will slip even farther south until they collapse into a line encircling the equator, and the rings themselves will continue to darken as the rays of the sun progressively lengthen. Finally, on August 11, the sun will be illuminating the rings edge-on. Large imaging mosaics of the entire ring system are planned for this very special occasion.
Here on Earth, we welcomed the arrival of yet another northern vernal equinox only three days ago. Now, like the Druids of old, in reverence and celebration for the motions of the Sun, we prepare to greet the arrival of spring to the northern reaches of Saturn. It will be a time for revelry and wonder ... and the only Saturnian spring we Cassinians will ever know.
Carolyn Porco
Cassini Imaging Team Leader
CICLOPS
Boulder, CO
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| Captain's Log: Le Sacre du Printemps | | September 21, 2009 | It is a drama as ancient as the sun, as unflinching as time ... a never-ending whirl of celestial movements, scripted and precise, in a silent show of cosmic force, played out in light and shadow.
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| Captain's Log: Gene Roddenberry Meets George Lucas | | May 7, 2009 | After a long several-year wait of acute anticipation and much fanfare, the new J.J. Abrams' film `Star Trek' is finally opening nationwide on Friday, May 8.
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| Captain's Log: Celebrating Galileo | | April 2, 2009 | In a global re-enactment of humankind's first magnified look at the heavens 400 years ago, hundreds of thousands of telescopes across the Earth will turn this Saturday night, April 4, in unison to the night sky to gaze at the Moon and a gleaming planet Saturn.
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| 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.
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| Captain's Log: Cassini Skeet Shoots Enceladus Again | | November 1, 2008 | Greetings to all you fellow travelers!
We on Cassini are very happy to report that we've just successfully put behind us one more major milestone in this remarkable adventure: a very close flyby of the icy moon Enceladus.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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