Okay, Set Scene: Rings, Titan, Geysers…

This composite has been kicked around a bunch on unmannedspaceflight.com. Contained within it are two separate images taken by the Cassini mission at nearly the same time but different exposures. Looking at this scene with human eyes, the big difference would likely be that the geysers would not be blown out and would look more like a multiple of gentle hazes spewing upward. The other big difference would be that you were somehow on a mission to Saturn and not browsing the web.

Above are the two original exposures. These were merely combined with a photo editing tool. The geyser haze was blurred in areas to clean out compression artifacts and the color was artistically added by Gordan Ugarkovic. While the color is artificially generated, it does accurately reflect the same overall appearance of most natural light images of Titan.

The Fountains of Enceladus

This has to be one of the greatest, most alien images ever taken from robotic spacecraft. It approaches how I might expect Enceladus to be depicted if it were in a Star Trek movie. As if the plumes at the edge of the disk back-lit by the Sun were not enough… the trail of smaller plumes breaking through the darkness is absolutely fantastic. The above is a real image but the color is an artistic interpretation by someone would know. Considering how little color is usually found at Enceladus, we can image this is really as good as if it were compiled from a full RGB set of filters. A larger monotone of the same image here.

This image was compiled by Astro0 on unmannedspaceflight.com. Also one of the best views staring down the length of one of Enceladus’ “tiger stripes”.

Ever so sharp look straight down on the South Pole of Enceladus from 1,855 km.

The Plumes of Enceladus in Color (kind of)

Like the Saturnshine image posted earlier, this is only an estimation of a true color image. Five sources were used to compile this image; clear 1, clear 2, red, blue and another clear filtered image was used to replace the missing green to round it out (this work by S_Walker from unmannedspaceflight.com). We then additionally cleaned out artifacts from the original images and blurred the surrounding geyser haze largely to eliminate posterization noise.

This is the first time anyone has been able to attempt a true color view of the geysers with the availability of the red and blue images. Also a bonus is the considerable amount of Saturnshine seen on the dark side of the moon.

Dueling Enceladian Light Sources

Gordan U compiled this image of Enceladus lit both by Sun and Saturnshine. The side lit by reflected light from Saturn is in infrared and in the original appeared in a green hue. I took some liberties and imaged it as I would imagine it really would appear to the eye in Saturn’s more orange/yellow hues.

Worth noting tomorrow the images are due in from Cassini’s closest approach yet through its plumes. Hoping for some amazing material.

Enceladus: All In One View

Seen in this image are Enceladian surface features and it’s geysers in action. This is normally not possible as the geysers are not normally visible unless they are back-lit… which they are in this image. The difference is that the surface details of Enceladus are being lit by an additional light source: Saturnshine. This makes for a fairly rare view where both details can be seen in one view.

iPhone Skins Featured on feulyourcreativity.com

Not to re-post old material, but our iPhone planetary skins were recently posted to fuelyourcreativity.com for free download. So I thought I would just remind everyone and maybe direct a little traffic love their way. 

At Closest Approach

At Closest Approach Oct 31, 2008 Sorry for the delay on this one… its remarkably similar to the last close approach images from August. This image, taken from 1,691 kilometers, also shows the areas surrounding the plume sources to be boulder strewn which suggests that occasionally some large sized chunks of internal Enceladus are ejected from within.

This approach and the previous only weeks ago are to be combined as a double research header. This encounter was largely for hi-res imaging while the previous was to “sniff” out the chemical composition of those plumes. The next close encounter (like this) for Enceladus will not be for another year, so lets hope these two encounters give us a clearer picture of what is actually happening inside this small wonder.

Check out this massive composite of the encounter released by JPL:

Oct 31 Composite

On the Way to Enceladus

On the Way to Enceladus There was another up-close buzz over the plumes of Enceladus yesterday. Apparently the science team has been mum about the previous close shave a few weeks ago because they want to do a combined press release on both encounters.

The above image taken Oct 28, is a real nice warm up shot taken on its way to the encounter with Dione in the foreground.

Another Enceladus Pass: To Come Within 25km!

Cassini at Enceladus Tomorrow’s Cassini buzz of Enceladus is closer than ever not only at Enceladus, but at any other body in the Saturnian system. It is to come only 25km from the surface. It is to fly deep into the plumes, but this visit is more about smell than vision. Imagery is not expected to be as impressive as August’s pass despite the close proximity due to the spacecraft‘s instruments concentrating on particles and dust analysis and not pretty pictures.

Enceladus New View

Enceladus View from the South This is a somewhat new view of Enceladus. Most global images we have seen show both the ridges and the cratered areas, whereas this image features almost exclusively the wrinkled terrain. Few craters are visible in this area which suggests that the details of its surface are quite young.

Nailed It: Vents Pinpointed

The Cairo Sulcus Vent Here is one of the vents pinpointed by the Cassini team. This was the only one of the four that seemed obvious to me in appearance. There are boulders scattered throughout the area, but you have to note the larger accumulation of boulders here at the center of this image where one of the 4 vents were revealed. It is conceivable that larger chunks of material (as well as fine particles) could potentially have been spewed from these vents occasionally or perhaps thousands of years ago… or both.

See this and all the other located vents of Baghdad / Cairo Sulci and of Damascus Sulcus at the Cyclops Cassini Imaging site.

The Mound

A strange “mound” like feature seen on Enceladus On Cassini’s close shave of Enceladus it captured and image of what seems to be a strange tall mound of something at middle right. Look at how long a shadow it casts.

This is also in semi-false/true color using infrared, green and ultraviolet for RGB. Can you tell from its richness of color?!

Are We Seeing Venting Here?

Do We See Venting Here? I am no scientist, but I would think that the wispy soft lines billowing from this fracture on Enceladus are the famed geysers we have seen so much of from a distance (see the upper right side of the fracture in particular). The geysers have been easily seen from more distant and back-lit images taken of Enceladus, and we know this area being imaged is the source. So wouldn’t it be fairly safe to assume that it is happening in several of these frames?

It may just be that the particles are too fine to be seen at this distance. Consider that they previously have only visible at greater distances when the plumes are back-lit in low-light situations. Seeing this activity from this distance may be kind of like trying to see a cloud when you are already in it… only harder.