NASA : The Big One .- El gigantesco cráter Herschel en el satélite Mimas del planeta Saturno...

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia20523/the-big-one

Mimas' gigantic crater Herschel lies near the moon's limb in this Cassini view.

A big enough impact could potentially break up a moon. Luckily for Mimas, whatever created Herschel was not quite big enough to cause that level of disruption.

When large impacts happen, they deliver tremendous amounts of energy -- sometimes enough to cause global destruction.  Even impacts that are not catastrophic can leave enormous, near-permanent scars on bodies like Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across).

This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Mimas. North on Mimas is up and rotated 32 degrees to the left. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 19, 2016.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 53,000 miles (85,000 kilometers) from Mimas. Image scale is 1,677 feet (511 meters) per pixel.

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 the California Institute of Technology 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.

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 the California Institute of Technology 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 

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .

The Cassini imaging team homepage is at 

http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Last Updated: March 13, 2017

Editor: Tony Greicius

Tags:  Cassini, Image of the Day, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mimas, Moons, Saturn, Solar System,

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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NASA : Tiny Mimas, Huge Rings - Minúsculo MIMAS, en medio de enormes anillos

Saturn's icy moon Mimas is dwarfed by the planet's enormous rings.

Because Mimas (near lower left) appears tiny by comparison, it might seem that the rings would be far more massive, but this is not the case. Scientists think the rings are no more than a few times as massive as Mimas, or perhaps just a fraction of Mimas' mass. Cassini is expected to determine the mass of Saturn's rings to within just a few hundredths of Mimas' mass as the mission winds down by tracking radio signals from the spacecraft as it flies close to the rings.  

The rings, which are made of small, icy particles spread over a vast area, are extremely thin – generally no thicker than the height of a house. Thus, despite their giant proportions, the rings contain a surprisingly small amount of material.

Mimas is 246 miles (396 kilometers) wide.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 6 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in red light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 21, 2016.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 564,000 miles (907,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 31 degrees. Image scale is 34 miles (54 kilometers) per pixel.

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 the California Institute of Technology 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

 http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

 and

 http://www.nasa.gov/cassini.

The Cassini imaging team homepage is at

 http://ciclops.org.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Last Updated: Nov. 29, 2016

Editor: Tony Greicius

Tags:  Cassini, Image of the Day, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mimas, Moons, Planets, Saturn, Solar System,

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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NASA : NASA and Star Wars: The Connections Are Strong in This One.- NASA y la Guerra de las Galaxias, las conexiones son muy fuertes

The Millennium Falcon takes on TIE fighters in a scene from 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens.'

Credits: Disney

 

Space Screening, ‘TIE’-ins, Tatooine and The Droids You’re Looking For

NASA astronauts “use the force” every time they launch … from a certain point of view. We have real-world droids and ion engines. We’ve seen dual-sun planets like Tatooine and a moon that eerily resembles the Death Star. And with all the excitement around the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the Force will soon be felt 250 miles above Earth on the International Space Station. Disney is sending up the new film so the astronauts can watch in orbit, and the station's commander, Scott Kelly, can hardly wait:

If you're looking to be a "sky walker" yourself someday, NASA is now taking astronaut applications and we're offering a list of Star Wars-related reasons you should apply. Recently returned station astronaut Kjell Lindgren is such a fan that he posed with his station crewmates in a Jedi-themed mission poster and talked to StarWars.com about it.  Shortly before leaving the station, Lindgren tweeted about the uncanny resemblance of the station’s cupola to the cockpit of an Imperial TIE Fighter:

That's not the first connection we've noticed. When space shuttle Atlantis left the International Space Station after 2007’s STS-117 mission, it caught a view of the station that looked to some like a TIE fighter giving chase:

 

STS-117 flyaround of International Space Station.

Credits: NASA

 

The "TIE-ins" go beyond casual resemblance to real engineering. NASA already uses actual ion engines ("TIE" stands for "Twin Ion Engines") on spacecraft like Dawn, currently orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres. In fact, Dawn goes one better with three ion engines. The next generation of this engine is being considered for the Asteroid Redirect Mission, a stepping stone on NASA's Journey to Mars.

 

This image shows a cutting-edge solar-electric propulsion thruster in development at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., that uses xenon ions for propulsion. An earlier version of this solar-electric propulsion engine has been flying on NASA's Dawn mission to the asteroid belt.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

We Actually Do Have the Droids You’re Looking For

NASA has robots roving and exploring all over the solar system, but it's our own “R2” that's most likely to resonate with Star Wars fans. Robonaut 2, launched in 2011, is working along side humans on board the International Space Station, and may eventually help with spacewalks too dangerous for humans. Incidentally, an earlier version of Robonaut bore a strong “facial” resemblance to enigmatic bounty hunter Boba Fett.

 

 

NASA's own "R2," Robonaut 2, at work on board the International Space Station

Credits: NASA

 

Another "droid" seen on the space station was directly inspired by the saga. In 1999, then Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor David Miller, now NASA's Chief Technologist, showed the original 1977 Star Wars to his students on their first day of class. After the scene where hero Luke Skywalker learns lightsaber skills by sparring with a floating droid “remotes” on the Millennium Falcon, Miller stood up and pointed: "I want you to build me some of those."

The result was "SPHERES," or Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites.  Originally designed to test spacecraft rendezvous and docking maneuvers, the bowling-ball size mini-satellites can now be powered by smart phones.

European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti works with a pair of Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites, or SPHERES, on the International Space Station.

Credits: NASA

 

We couldn't resist having some fun with SPHERES and other NASA technology by creating a series of social media shareables for Star Wars Day, or "May the Fourth Be With You."

That’s No Moon, It's A ... Oh, Wait, It's Just a Moon

When we send our spacecraft into the solar system and point our telescopes beyond, we often see things that seem taken right out of the Star Wars universe. Saturn’s moon Mimas has become known as the "Death Star" moon because of how its 80-mile wide Herschel crater creates a resemblance to the Imperial battle station, especially when seen in this distant view from Cassini:

 

Mimas, with its large Herschel crater, resembles the Death Star as it looms over Saturn's rings in this image from Cassini

Credits: NASA/JPL-CalTech

 

Let's all hope that thing hasn't yet become fully operational.

Farther from home, the Hubble Space Telescope has photographed what looks like a cosmic, double-bladed lightsaber in the Orion B molecular cloud complex, located 1,350 light-years away. That's just a short hop once you've fired up the hyperdrive.

 

This is an artist's concept of the fireworks that accompany the birth of a star. The young stellar object is encircled by a pancake-shaped disk of dust and gas left over from the collapse of the nebula that formed the star. Gas falls onto the newly forming star and is heated to the point that some of it escapes along the star's spin axis. Intertwined by magnetic fields, the bipolar jets blast into space at over 100,000 miles per hour. As seen from far away, they resemble a double-bladed lightsaber from the Star Wars film series.

Credits: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)

 

It also turns out that some of the fictional planetary creations of the "Star Wars" universe are strikingly similar to real planets in our own Milky Way galaxy.  There's an icy world nicknamed Hoth, a potential water world like Kamino and a stand-in for volcanic Mustafar. The Kepler mission, which has confirmed more than 1,000 planets outside of our solar system, has discovered a world orbiting two suns, much like the fictional Tatooine, where Luke Skywalker stared into that twin sunset dreaming of battling the Empire. Kepler-16b, confirmed in 2011, represented a "milestone discovery," according to Kepler principal investigator William Borucki. "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars."

 

This artist's concept illustrates Kepler-16b, the first planet known to definitively orbit two stars - what's called a circumbinary planet.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

 

By the way, if we ever visit a planet like Tatooine, we may already know how to build a Jawa Sand Crawler, based on the treads on this crawler-transporter,  which carries rockets to the launchpad in Florida.

No, NASA doesn’t have light sabers or hyperdrive yet. And despite popular demand, we’re not building a Death Star. But we are doing what we've done for over half a century -- sending spacecraft into our solar system and beyond, and peering with our telescopes into galaxies far, far away.

Last Updated: Dec. 17, 2015

Editor: Jim Wilson

Tags:  Agency-About NASA, Ames Research Center, Cassini, Distant Planets, International Space Station (ISS), Kepler and K2, Mimas, Robotics, Solar System, Technology,

  NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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NASA : The Great Divide .- La gran división

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., EN 2.980 millas de ancho (4.800 kilómetros de diámetro) en la división de los anillos de Saturno se cree que es causada po  el satélite  (Luna)  Mimas. Partículas dentro de la órbita de Saturno división casi exactamente dos veces por cada vez que las órbitas de Mimas, que conduce a una acumulación de empujones gravitacionales del satélite(de la luna). Estas interacciones gravitacionales repetidas esculpen el borde exterior del anillo B y mantienen sus partículas pasen a formar parte de la División de Cassini.

More information............

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia18365/the-great-divide

It's difficult to get a sense of scale when viewing Saturn's rings, but the Cassini Division (seen here between the bright B ring and dimmer A ring) is almost as wide as the planet Mercury. (See PIA11142 for a labeled panorama of features in the rings.)

The 2,980-mile-wide (4,800-kilometer-wide) division in Saturn's rings is thought to be caused by the moon Mimas. Particles within the division orbit Saturn almost exactly twice for every time that Mimas orbits, leading to a build-up of gravitational nudges from the moon. These repeated gravitational interactions sculpt the outer edge of the B ring and keep its particles from drifting into the Cassini Division.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 4 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 28, 2016.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 740,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 76 degrees. Image scale is 4 miles (7 kilometers) per pixel.

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 the California Institute of Technology 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

 http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and

 http://www.nasa.gov/cassini.

The Cassini imaging team homepage is at

 http://ciclops.org.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Last Updated: April 11, 2016

Editor: Tony Greicius

Tags:  Cassini, Image of the Day, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Saturn, Solar System,

 

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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NASA : Three Times the Fun .- Tres veces la diversión en Saturno..........

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la Agencia Espacial NASA, nos trae una venturosa información sobre un diversión que hacen los satélites de Saturno en sus movimientos a su alrededor, que fue captada por la sonda Cassini. NASA nos dice: Tetis (660 millas o 1.062 kilómetros de diámetro) aparece encima de los anillos, mientras que Encelado (313 millas o 504 kilómetros de diámetro) se encuentra justo por debajo del centro. Mimas (246 millas o 396 kilómetros de diámetro) se cuelga por debajo ya la izquierda de Encelado.

More information....

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia18357/three-times-the-fun

Three of Saturn's moons -- Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas -- are captured in this group photo from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) appears above the rings, while Enceladus (313 miles or 504 kilometers across) sits just below center. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across) hangs below and to the left of Enceladus.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 0.4 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 3, 2015.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 837,000 miles (1.35 million kilometers) from Enceladus, with an image scale of 5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel. Tethys was approximately 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) away with an image scale of 7 miles (11 kilometers) per pixel.  Mimas was approximately 1.1 million miles (1.7 million kilometers) away with an image scale of 6 miles (10 kilometers) per pixel.

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 the California Institute of Technology 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

 http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
 and
 http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .
The Cassini imaging team homepage is at
 http://ciclops.org .

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Last Updated: Feb. 22, 2016

Editor: Tony Greicius

Tags:  Cassini, Enceladus, Image of the Day, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mimas, Moons, Saturn, Solar System, Tethys,

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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ayabaca@hotmail.com

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NASA : Worlds Apart .- Una parte de los mundos..... en el Planeta Saturno.....

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG.,Aunque Mimas y Pandora, muestran aquí, tanto en la órbita de Saturno, que son muy diferentes lunas. Pandora, "pequeño" para los estándares de la luna (50 millas o 81 kilómetros de diámetro) es alargado y de forma irregular. Mimas (246 millas o 396 kilómetros de diámetro), una luna "de tamaño medio", formada en una esfera debido a la propia gravedad impuesta por su masa superior.Las formas de las lunas pueden enseñarnos mucho sobre su historia. Por ejemplo, una explicación de la forma alargada de Pandora y baja densidad es que puede haberse formado mediante la recopilación de partículas de los anillos sobre un núcleo denso.Esta vista se dirige hacia el lado no iluminado de los anillos desde 0,26 grados por debajo del plano de los anillos. La imagen fue tomada en luz visible con la cámara de ángulo estrecho de la Cassini el 26 de julio de 2015.

La vista fue obtenida a una distancia de aproximadamente 485.000 millas (781.000 kilómetros) de Pandora. Escala de la imagen es de 3 millas (5 kilómetros) por píxel. Mimas es 904.000 millas (1,4 millones de kilómetros) de la nave espacial en esta imagen. La escala de Mimas es de 5,4 millas (8,4 kilómetros) por píxel.La misión Cassini es un proyecto cooperativo de la NASA, la ESA (la Agencia Espacial Europea) y la Agencia Espacial Italiana. El Jet Propulsion Laboratory, una división del Instituto de Tecnología de California en Pasadena, dirige la misión para el Directorio de Misiones Científicas de la NASA en Washington. El orbitador Cassini y sus dos cámaras de a bordo fueron diseñadas, desarrolladas y ensambladas en el JPL. El equipo de imagen tiene su base en el Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass.

The shapes of moons can teach us much about their history. For example, one explanation for Pandora's elongated shape and low density is that it may have formed by gathering ring particles onto a dense core.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from 0.26 degrees below the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 26, 2015.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 485,000 miles (781,000 kilometers) from Pandora. Image scale is 3 miles (5 kilometers) per pixel. Mimas is 904,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) from the spacecraft in this image. The scale on Mimas is 5.4 miles (8.4 kilometers) per pixel.

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 the California Institute of Technology 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

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

or http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .

 The Cassini imaging team homepage is at

http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Last Updated: Oct. 13, 2015

Editor: Tony Greicius

Tags:  Cassini, Image of the Day, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mimas, Saturn, Solar System,

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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ayabaca@hotmail.com

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NASA : Groovy Rings of Saturn .- Anillos de Saturno Groovy

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido información de la Agencia Espacial NASA, sobre las últimas investigaciones de la Sonda Cassini en el Planeta Saturno que se dedica a la investigación de los Anillos: Desde lejos, los anillos de Saturno se ven como un sólido disco, homogénea del material. Pero un examen más detenido de la Cassini, vemos que hay estructuras variadas en los anillos en casi todas las escalas imaginables.

Las estructuras en los anillos pueden ser causados por muchas cosas, pero muchas veces de los muchos satélites de Saturno son los culpables. Las lagunas oscuras cerca del borde izquierdo del anillo A (el ancho, anillo exterior aquí) son causados por los satélites(Pan y Daphnis) incrustados en las lagunas, mientras que la división de Cassini más amplio (zona oscura entre el anillo B y un anillo aquí ) es creado por una resonancia con el satélite Mimas de tamaño mediano (que orbita bien fuera de los anillos). Prometeo es visto orbitando justo fuera del anillo A en el cuadrante inferior izquierdo de esta imagen; el anillo F puede ser ligeramente ve a la izquierda de Prometeo.

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Groovy Rings of Saturn

 

From afar, Saturn's rings look like a solid, homogenous disk of material. But upon closer examination from Cassini, we see that there are varied structures in the rings at almost every scale imaginable.

 

Structures in the rings can be caused by many things, but often times Saturn's many moons are the culprits. The dark gaps near the left edge of the A ring (the broad, outermost ring here) are caused by the moons (Pan and Daphnis) embedded in the gaps, while the wider Cassini division (dark area between the B ring and A ring here) is created by a resonance with the medium-sized moon Mimas (which orbits well outside the rings). Prometheus is seen orbiting just outside the A ring in the lower left quadrant of this image; the F ring can be faintly seen to the left of Prometheus.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 15 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in red light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 8, 2015.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 566,000 miles (911,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 37 degrees. Image scale is 34 miles (54 kilometers) per pixel.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. 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, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov or http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .

 The Cassini imaging team homepage is at

 http://ciclops.org .

 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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NASA : Crescent Mimas

Crescent Mimas

A thin sliver of Mimas is illuminated, the long shadows showing off its many craters, indicators of the moon's violent history.

The most famous evidence of a collision on Mimas (246 miles, or 396 kilometers across) is the crater Herschel that gives Mimas its Death Star-like appearance. See PIA12568 for more on Herschel.

This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Mimas. North on Mimas is up and rotated 40 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 20, 2013.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 100,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 130 degrees. Image scale is 4,000 feet (1 kilometer) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. 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, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit

 http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

and

 http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

 The Cassini imaging team homepage is at

 http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
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Astronomy: Scrambling Saturn’s B-ring

 Zooming in on clumps in Saturn’s B-ring (lower left), the image also spans the ringlets of the Cassini Division towards the A-ring in the top right. The view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 31 degrees below the ring plane. The image scale is approximately 2 km per pixel. 

Credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Scrambling Saturn’s B-ring

 Clumpy particles in Saturn’s B-ring provide stark contrast to the delicately ordered ringlets seen in the rest of this view presented by the Cassini spacecraft.

Saturn’s B-ring is the largest and brightest of the gas giant’s rings, the outer portion of which is seen in the left side of this image.

The ring’s outside edge is influenced by meddling moon Mimas, which orbits the planet once for every two circuits the icy ring particles complete.

These periodic gravity perturbations are thought to compress the ring particles into clumps, while maintaining the ring’s well-defined outer edge.

Beyond the B-ring lies the Huygens gap, the widest dark void visible in this image, punctuated only by the bright Huygens ringlet. The 4800 km-wide Cassini Division separates the B-ring from the outermost A-ring, but itself is marked out with faint, concentric strands of ring material.

From Earth, the Cassini Division appears as a thin black gap in Saturn’s rings, but close-up views from spacecraft expose the delicate structures in fine detail.

This image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 10 July 2009 from a distance of 320 000 km from Saturn.

Cassini is a joint mission between ESA, NASA and ASI and has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004. It is now in its second extended mission phase, the Cassini Solstice Mission, which will continue until 2017. 

ESA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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NASA: UNA VISIÓN DEL CRATER HERSCHEL EN EL SATÉLITE "MIMAS" DEL PLANETA SATURNO

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido de la NASA una vista captada por la Sonda Espacial "Cassini" del cráter "Herschel" en el satélite MIMAS del planeta Saturno. Aquí en la imagen observamos el impresionante cráter "Herschel" en el satélite MIMAS del planeta Saturno. Fuente: NASA.

CRÁTER "HERSCHEL" EN EL SATÉLITE MIMAS DEL PLANETA SATURNO:

Diferencias sutiles en color sobre el satélite MIMAS del planeta Saturno son evidentes en esta vista falsa en color del cráter Herschel captadas por la nave espacial "Cassini " de la NASA durante su recorrido aéreo más cercano alguna vez de aquella luna.

La imagen muestra variaciones dependientes de terreno en color, en particular el contraste entre los materiales azulados en y alrededor del Cráter Herschel y el molde verdoso sobre más viejo, más pesadamente cratered el terreno en otra parte. El origen de las diferencias en color aún no es entendido, pero puede ser causado por diferencias de la composición superficial entre los dos terrenos. Imágenes falsas en color del encuentro anterior más cercano de la sonda espacial " Cassini" , en 2005, también mostraron tales variaciones.

El color natural del satélite Mimas visible al ojo humano puede ser un color uniforme cano o amarillo, pero este mosaico ha sido realzado por contraste y muestra diferencias en otras longitudes de onda de luz.

Durante este recorrido aéreo orbital el 13 de febrero de 2010, La sonda espacial "Cassini" se internó muy dentro de aproximadamente 5,900 millas del satélite Mimas y estas imágenes fueron obtenidas con la cámara estrecha de ángulo de Cassini durante aquel día a una distancia de aproximadamente 10,000 millas de Mimas. Las imágenes fueron proyectadas de nuevo en una proyección de un mapa ortográfico. Una imagen blanca y negra, tomada en la luz visible con la cámara amplia de ángulo, es usada llenarse en las partes del mosaico.

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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