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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Dione's south pole
Cassini got a nice
Enceladus is a drag on Saturn's radio emissions
What should arrive in my inbox today but a press release from the Cassini RPWS and magnetometer teams saying, in part,
LPSC: Tuesday: Volcanism and tectonism on Saturn's satellites
I received this report on the Tuesday afternoon special session on volcanism and tectonism on Saturn's satellites from Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer from the University of Virginia who I first met at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in 2005.
LPSC: Wow, Titan can be a Really Flat Place, and other Titan Talks
Jason Perry, a member of the Cassini Imaging Team and an undergraduate student at the University of Arizona, reports from the Titan sessions.
Cassini's global views of Saturn and its rings
Since late January Cassini has been acquiring several sets of images that show all of Saturn's globe and ring system at once from perspectives well above and below the ring plane.
Saturn from above (2007)
OK, I had planned to confine my posts this week to Rosetta and New Horizons, but I could not let these images sit on my computer until next week.
A new way to darken Iapetus
Iapetus is one of the many fascinating bodies in the Saturn system.
New Horizons update and a website roundup
I've just posted a very detailed timeline of New Horizons' encounter with Jupiter -- take a look!
Saturn from above, in color
I wrote recently about a set of images of Saturn acquired by Cassini from a unique vantage point, well above the planet, looking down on the rings. Someone has taken up the challenge of assembling the 36 different images into a single mosaic, in color, and it is as lovely as I'd hoped.
A cool Cassini ring plane crossing animation
Another recent, cool set of images that came down from Cassini was a series taken last week as the spacecraft crossed the ring plane.
The Saturn view I've been waiting for
Over the weekend, Cassini acquired a set of images that will (I am assuming) eventually be used to produce a glorious portrait of the ringed planet from a point of view that's never been seen before.
More Cassini RADAR images
Cassini just flew by Titan again on Saturday, and should have acquired a new swath of RADAR data.
Titan's Lakes
The first peer-reviewed article on Titan's lakes comes out in tomorrow's issue of the journal Nature.
Mountain range on Titan
A couple of weeks ago there were press releases coming out of the American Geophysical Union meeting about the discovery of a
CIRS gets another view of Enceladus' south polar hot spot
There's a new image product released from the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on Cassini, an instrument that is capable of measuring the temperatures on the extremely cold surfaces of Saturn's moons and rings.
Saturn from above (2006)
Ever since I first read about the plans for Cassini's tour of the Saturn system I've been looking forward to the current phase of the mission.
Breaking a tie on the Cassini science teams
This week's Cassini Project Update was particularly interesting, because it contained a story about how a difficult decision was made regarding the prioritizing of different science teams' desires for an upcoming Titan flyby.
Cassini VIMS and RADAR: a cryovolcano on Titan?
Yesterday, the VIMS team released several images from Cassini's
New names for Enceladus' features
The IAU has just approved new names for 35 craters, dorsa, fossae, and sulci on the surface of Enceladus, based upon Cassini's high-resolution mapping of the little moon. What are dorsa, fossae, and sulci, you might ask?
Cassini's view from the backside of Saturn
Over time, Cassini's orbit apoapsis—the point on the orbit that is farthest from Saturn—has been shifting slowly toward Saturn's night side. Lately, this point of view has resulted in some truly lovely photos of the planet.