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The Planetary Report • May/June 2005
Saturn's Icy Moons
On the Cover: Cassini images taken on December 31, 2004 were combined to make this near-true color view of Saturn’s moon Iapetus. This image, taken at a distance of about 172,900 kilometers (107,400 miles) shows the northern part of the moon’s dark Cassini Regio. The large impact basin visible here is 400 kilometers (250 miles) in diameter. This image has been rotated so that north is to the right.
Features
6 The Moon: What We Know and What We Want to Know: James Burke summarizes our current lunar knowledge and what we hope to learn from future missions.
7 Into the Dark: Amanda Hendrix and Jonathan Lunine present the latest views of 7 of Saturn's icy moons—Phoebe, Tethys, Dione, Iapetus, Mimas, Rhea, and Enceladus.
Departments
3 Members' Dialogue Unexplored Neptune and Uranus, Project Daedalus, the smell of methane, and reducing human error in space missions
4 We Make it Happen! Recording the sounds of the solar system
18 World Watch The future of the space shuttle, Hubble, Voyager, and the JIMO mission.
20 Q&A Could methane rivers on Titan carry boulders? How do you slow down a solar sail? How far out can electromagnetic signals from Earth be detected above the universe's background levels?
22 Society News Announcing the Great Comet Crater Contest!
The Planetary Report • May/June 2005
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