#SpaceScience image of the week features Saturn.

The international #Cassini mission is drawing to a close in spectacular style: diving between #Saturn and its innermost #rings and exploring uncharted territory like never before.

The final set of five dives even dips the spacecraft into the top of Saturn’s atmosphere, giving Cassini’s instruments the chance to make the first direct sampling of the planet, studying its chemical composition and analysing its temperature at different altitudes. The dives will also provide close-up images of the planet’s atmospheric features, including its polar vortex and aurora.

Read more:
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/08/Saturn_s_rings_and_Prometheus

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Saturn in Blue and Gold

Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

Explanation: Why is Saturn partly blue? The featured picture of Saturn approximates what a human would see if hovering close to the giant ringed world. The image was taken in 2006 March by the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn. Here Saturn's majestic rings appear directly only as a thin vertical line. The rings show their complex structure in the dark shadows they create on the image left. Saturn's fountain moon Enceladus, only about 500 kilometers across, is seen as the bump in the plane of the rings. The northern hemisphere of Saturn can appear partly blue for the same reason that Earth's skies can appear blue -- molecules in the cloudless portions of both planet's atmospheres are better at scattering blue light than red. When looking deep into Saturn's clouds, however, the natural gold hue of Saturn's clouds becomes dominant. It is not known why southern Saturn does not show the same blue hue -- one hypothesis holds that clouds are higher there. It is also not known why Saturn's clouds are colored gold. Next month, Cassini will end its mission with a final dramatic dive into Saturn's atmosphere.

#Saturn #Cassini

NASA Previews Cassini Spacecraft's Grand Finale at Saturn | JPL
Media teleconference with visuals about spacecraft science and operations activities for the final orbits of NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn. It included remarks from:

Curt Niebur, Cassini program scientist, Headquarters, Washington
Earl Maize, Cassini project manager, JPL
Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, JPL

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and https://www.nasa.gov/cassini
The Cassini imaging team homepage is at https://ciclops.org

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Duration: 1 hour
Release Date: August 29, 2017

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Saturn #Planet #Rings #SolarSystem #Exploration #Cassini #Spacecraft #GrandFinale #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #ESA #ASI #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Saturn in Blue and Gold | NASA Cassini Mission
Why is Saturn partly blue? The featured picture of Saturn approximates what a human would see if hovering close to the giant ringed world. The image was taken in March 2006 by the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn. Here Saturn's majestic rings appear directly only as a thin vertical line. The rings show their complex structure in the dark shadows they create on the image left. Saturn's fountain moon Enceladus, only about 500 kilometers across, is seen as the bump in the plane of the rings. The northern hemisphere of Saturn can appear partly blue for the same reason that Earth's skies can appear blue— molecules in the cloudless portions of both planet's atmospheres are better at scattering blue light than red. When looking deep into Saturn's clouds, however, the natural gold hue of Saturn's clouds becomes dominant. It is not known why southern Saturn does not show the same blue hue—one hypothesis holds that clouds are higher there. It is also not known why Saturn's clouds are colored gold. Next month, Cassini will end its mission with a final dramatic dive into Saturn's atmosphere.

Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
Release Date: August 29, 2017

+NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
+NASA Solar System Exploration
+European Space Agency, ESA
+Carolyn Porco Fan Page
+Astronomy Picture of the Day (APoD)

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Saturn #Planet #Rings #Moon #Enceladus #SolarSystem #Exploration #Cassini #Spacecraft #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #ESA #ASI #STEM #Education #APoD

Cassini Spacecraft's 'Inside-Out' Saturn Rings Movie | NASA JPL
Behold! The Cassini spacecraft captured the first-ever movie of Saturn’s rings from the inside out during its August 20 flyby!
August 26, 2017: This movie sequence of images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft offers a unique perspective on Saturn's ring system. Cassini captured the images from within the gap between the planet and its rings, looking outward as the spacecraft made one of its final dives through the gap as part of the mission's Grand Finale.

Using its wide-angle camera, Cassini took the 21 images in the sequence over a span of about four minutes during its dive through the gap on Aug. 20, 2017. The images have an original size of 512 x 512 pixels; the smaller image size allowed for more images to be taken over the short span of time.

The entirety of the main rings can be seen here, but due to the low viewing angle, the rings appear extremely foreshortened. The perspective shifts from the sunlit side of the rings to the unlit side, where sunlight filters through. On the sunlit side, the grayish C ring looks larger in the foreground because it is closer; beyond it is the bright B ring and slightly less-bright A ring, with the Cassini Division between them. The F ring is also fairly easy to make out.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and https://www.nasa.gov/cassini. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at https://ciclops.org.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Image Date: August 20, 2017
Release Date: August 26, 2017

+NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
+NASA Solar System Exploration
+European Space Agency, ESA
+Carolyn Porco Fan Page

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Saturn #Planet #Rings #SolarSystem #Exploration #Cassini #Spacecraft #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #ESA #ASI #STEM #Education #Animation #GIF

Cassini's 'Inside-Out' Rings
This movie sequence of images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft offers a unique perspective on Saturn’s ring system. Cassini captured the images from within the gap between the planet and its rings, looking outward as the spacecraft made one of its final dives through the gap as part of the mission's Grand Finale.

Using its wide-angle camera, Cassini took the 21 images in the sequence over a span of about four minutes during its dive through the gap on Aug. 20, 2017.

The entirety of the main rings can be seen here, but due to the low viewing angle, the rings appear extremely foreshortened. The perspective shifts from the sunlit side of the rings to the unlit side, where sunlight filters through. On the sunlit side, the grayish C ring looks larger in the foreground because it is closer; beyond it is the bright B ring and slightly less-bright A ring, with the Cassini Division between them. The F ring is also fairly easy to make out.

Source:
https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/7751/
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

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#NASA #Cassini #spacecraft to make final plunge into #Saturn September 15 #clarksville #space #science #titan #news

Written by Preston Dyches NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is 18 days from its mission-ending dive into the atmosphere of Saturn. Its fateful plunge on September 15th, 2017 is a foregone conclusion — an April 22nd…

Saturn's Rings from the Inside Out
What do Saturn's rings look like from Saturn? Images from the robotic spacecraft Cassini are providing humanity with this unprecedented vantage point as it nears the completion of its mission. Previous to Cassini's Grand Finale orbits, all images of Saturn's majestic ring system were taken from outside of the rings looking in.

Pictured in the inset is the remarkable video, while the spacecraft's positions are depicted in the surrounding animation. Details of the complex rings are evident as the short time-lapse sequence begins, while the paper-thin thickness of the rings becomes apparent near the video's end. The featured images were taken on August 20. Cassini has only a few more orbits around Saturn left before it is directed to dive into the giant planet on September 15.

Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Video Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Space Science Institute

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