Saturn, Titan & Prometheus

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, looks small here, pictured to the right of the gas giant in this Cassini spacecraft view.

Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across) is in the upper right. Saturn's rings appear across the top of the image, and they cast a series of shadows onto the planet across the middle of the image.

The moon Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) appears as a tiny white speck above the rings in the far upper right of the image. The shadow cast by Prometheus can be seen as a small black speck on the planet on the far left of the image, between the shadows cast by the main rings and the thin F ring. The shadow of the moon Pandora also can be seen on the planet south of the shadows of all the rings, below the center of the image towards the right side of the planet. Pandora is not shown here.

This view looks toward the southern, unilluminated side of the rings from about 1 degree below the ringplane.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on January 5, 2012 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 426,000 miles (685,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 20 degrees. Image scale is 23 miles (37 kilometers) per pixel on Saturn.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Changes in Titan's North Polar Cloud

This series of images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows several views of the north polar cloud covering Saturn's moon Titan. The false-color images were obtained by Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). They can be seen on the left of each pair of images, with that same image re-projected onto a globe of Titan on the right. The global image shows Titan's north pole at the center. Other parts of the Titan globe are filled in using data from Cassini's imaging cameras and radar instrument.

The VIMS images cover 2006 to 2009, when Titan was transitioning from northern winter to northern spring. In 2006, the north polar cloud appeared dense and opaque. But in spectrometer images obtained around the 2009 equinox, when the Sun was directly over Saturn and Titan's equators and northern winter was turning into spring, the cloud appeared much thinner and patchier. It allowed scientists to see the underlying northern lakes and seas on the surface, including Kraken Mare (at the end of the red arrows). The northern seas and lakes, made of liquid hydrocarbons, look like dark jigsaw puzzle pieces in the false-color images.

Scientists colorized the VIMS image by assigning red, green and blue to the parts of the infrared spectrum around 5 micrometers, 2.8 micrometers and 2.03 micrometers, respectively. The images create a kind of time-lapse series from December 28, 2006 to June 6, 2009, from the 23rd, 24th, 30th, 43rd, 44th, 45th, 52nd, 53rd, 55th and 57th time Cassini flew by Titan. (Planning changes early in the orbital tour meant that even though a Titan flyby might be called "T22," it was actually the 23rd flyby of Titan.)

For a view of just the VIMS images, see PIA15230.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/CNRS/LPGNantes

Snapshots of Titan's North Polar Cloud

This series of false-color images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the dissolving cloud cover over the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan. The images, obtained by Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), cover 2006 to 2009, when Titan was transitioning from northern winter to northern spring. In 2006, the north polar cloud appeared dense and opaque. But in spectrometer images obtained around the 2009 equinox, when the Sun was directly over Saturn and Titan's equators and northern winter was turning into spring, the cloud appeared much thinner and patchier. The dissipating cloud allowed scientists to see the underlying northern lakes and seas, including Kraken Mare. The northern seas and lakes on the surface below, made of liquid hydrocarbons, look like dark jigsaw puzzle pieces in the false-color images.

Scientists colorized the VIMS image by assigning red, green and blue to the parts of the infrared spectrum around 5 micrometers, 2.8 micrometers and 2.03 micrometers, respectively. The images create a kind of time-lapse series from December 28, 2006 to June 6, 2009.

For another view of these images, see PIA15231.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/CNRS/LPGNantes

Mimas and the Cut-Off Rings

Saturn's moon Mimas joins the planet's rings which appear truncated by the planet's shadow in this Cassini spacecraft image.

Saturn is off to the left, out of view here. The inner rings are just visible there. But the planet's shadow covers part of the rings across the middle of the image. Mimas (246 miles, or 396 kilometers across) is closer to Cassini than the rings are here.

The bright speck above the rings is a star.

To increase visibility, the rings have been brightened by a factor of two relative to Mimas. This view looks toward the southern, unilluminated side of the rings from just below the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on December 21, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.7 million miles (2.7 million kilometers) from Mimas. Image scale is 10 miles (16 kilometers) per pixel on Mimas.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Rhea Before Titan

Craters appear well defined on icy Rhea in front of the hazy orb of the much larger moon Titan in this Cassini spacecraft view of these two Saturn moons.

See PIA08137 and PIA14913 to learn more about the hazy atmosphere on Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across). See PIA07763 and PIA11465 for closer views of craters on Rhea (949 miles, or 1,528 kilometers across).

Lit terrain seen here is on the leading hemispheres of Rhea and Titan. North on the moons is up and rotated 13 degrees to the left. The limb, or edge of the visible disk, of Rhea is slightly overexposed in this view.

The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on December 10, 2011. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometers) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 109 degrees. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 810,000 miles (1.3 million kilometers) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 109 degrees. Image scale is 8 miles (12 kilometers) per pixel on Titan and 5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel on Rhea.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Enceladus and Saturn's Rings

A crescent Enceladus appears with Saturn's rings in this Cassini spacecraft view of the moon.

The famed jets of water ice emanating from the south polar region of the moon are faintly visible here. They appear as a small white blur below the dark south pole, down and to the right of the illuminated part of the moon's surface in the image. The image's contrast was enhanced to increase the visibility of the jets. See PIA11688 to learn more about the jets.

Lit terrain seen here is on the trailing hemisphere of Enceladus (313 miles, 504 kilometers across). North on Enceladus is up.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on January 4, 2012. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 181,000 miles (291,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 136 degrees. Image scale is 1 mile (2 kilometers) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Note: For more information, see Saturn's Rings and Enceladus.