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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Pretty Cassini pictures from near the ring plane
It's been a while since I posted some Cassini pictures here just because they were pretty.
Analyzing the first published Huygens results
I am working my way steadily through the seven Huygens papers that were released by Nature magazine Wednesday on their
Cassini Photographs the Fountains of Enceladus (and gets pics of Tethys, Janus, Epimetheus, and the G ring too)
Emily tackles this morning's ESA press conference about Huygens.
An update on the Huygens Doppler Wind Experiment
While I was at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in Cambridge in September I had a chance to chat with David Atkinson, who's a member of the Doppler Wind Experiment team on Huygens. They and the other instrument teams have been plugging away at analyzing their data.
Cassini Poised to Pinpoint Huygens' Landing Site At Last
I've just posted a very brief update on the upcoming Titan flyby, which will be the first to include RADAR imaging across the Huygens landing site.
A way-cool Cassini picture: rings, Titan, Dione, Prometheus
I just noticed this picture on the Cassini raw images website. I love these
Animation from Cassini's approach to Dione
The images from Cassini's Dione encounter yesterday have started coming back, and there is a really cool set of 16 pictures of Dione and Rhea.
Dione encounter today
Cassini is already on its way in to a close, 500-kilometer encounter with Dione -- it's less than four hours away now, at 17:52 UTC.
Hyperion in color
Here is a gorgeous color mosaic of Hyperion assembled by amateur image processor Mattias Malmer from images from the recent flyby.
A new Cassini data release to the Planetary Data System
Yesterday, this quarter's release of Cassini data showed up at the Planetary Data System (PDS). The PDS is the public repository for all of NASA's data.
Amazing views of Hyperion
I've finally worked my way through all of the Hyperion images that were returned from the last flyby. It's a wonderful data set.
Modest scopes could help with the Hyperion observations
I got an email last night from Anne Verbiscer, whom I had contacted about rounding up some amateur astronomers to help the Cassini mission with some photometric observations of Hyperion.
DPS: Central transit of Earth as seen from Saturn
There were a few talks at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting dealing with a rare and fortuitous event that happened on January 13, 2005.
Some bad news for fans of Titan RADAR
According to Jason Perry, the much-anticipated Titan-7 RADAR imagery across Titan's southern hemisphere may have been lost due to an error on Cassini's solid state recorder. That will be very sad if it turns out to be true.
DPS: Back to Day 3 again: finishing up asteroids & Iapetus
Today is the last day of DPS, and the first that has not had a press conference session at lunchtime, so I have a few moments here to do some catching up.
A couple of pretty Cassini photos from this week
First, here's a nice shot of Epimetheus, which was taken about a month ago.
A little more Hyperion
Checking the Cassini raw images website, I found quite a few more images of Hyperion this morning. It looks like Cassini had a leisurely flyby of the little moon from roughly 700,000 kilometers' distance.
Cassini tour page revised
Cassini mission planner Dave Seal just gave me the latest reference trajectory for Cassini, so I've gone through and updated the flyby altitudes on the Cassini tour page.
Enceladus is alive!
It's official: Enceladus has joined the rarefied community of Solar System objects that have been caught in the act of making new geology.