Archive September 2011

Saturn above Rhea’s Horizon

Saturn as viewed from Rhea.

This image shows Saturn above Rhea’s horizon and is an artistic combination of the following two images:

  • Saturn with the big white storm on its northern hemisphere, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on January 02, 2011, from a mean distance of 2,556,958 kilometers.
    Raw images taken using CB2, GRN and BL1 filters were combined to create this color view.
    The color composite was rotated 180 degrees, cropped, downsized and blurred using Gaussian blur.
  • The surface of Saturn’s moon Rhea, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on January 11, 2011,
    from a distance of about 200 kilometers.
    The image was rotated 127 degrees counterclockwise, cropped, sharpened and slightly colorized.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/Montage by astroarts.org

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Ariel, moon of Uranus

Voyager 2 image mosaic of Ariel.

Mosaic of the four high-resolution images C2684533, C2684535, C2684537 and C2684539 of Ariel,
taken by Voyager 2 on January 24, 1986, at a distance of about 130,000 kilometers.
Ariel is about 1,200 km in diameter.
The most notable features on this moon are the interconnected rift valleys that run across the highly pitted terrain. Some of the valleys are up to 10 km deep. They have formed as a result of expansion and stretching of Ariel’s crust.
Two of the Voyager images covering the terminator on the right are somewhat blurred due to the spacecraft’s motion and the longer exposure times of the camera. This could not be completely corrected during image processing.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Mosaic by astroarts.org

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