Unearthly beauty: Saturn's Rings and Moons

And more mesmerizing and literally unearthly shots from Cassini! (you may need to click on the images to see all the details... Blogger only has a couple of size choices. Bigger, and they're under the side bar.)

First, sunset on - no, around - Titan, as the light diffuses through its atmosphere. Wow. Just, wow.




Look closely for a glimpse of tiny Janus, far away on the other side of the rings...


Next, this of three icy moons and the rings:

The real jewels of Saturn are arguably its stunning collection of icy moons. Seen here with the unlit side of the rings are Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across at right), Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across at left) and Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across at center) with its fountain-like geysers.

The faint, vertical banding in the image is due to "noise" in the spacecraft electronics. This noise is difficult to remove from an image that has a very wide dynamic range--i.e., a wide range of brightness levels--as in the difference between gleaming Titan and the faint plumes of Enceladus.

Additionally, a reflection of Titan's light within the camera optics is likely responsible for the faint secondary image of Titan's limb to the left of the giant moon. (JPL Cassini-Huygens site)

In this next one, we see two moons, tiny Enceladus and, just under the rings and barely peeking out, slightly bigger Rhea.



As NASA/JPL's page says:

Enceladus blasts its icy spray into space in this unlit-side ring view that also features a tiny sliver of Rhea.

The south polar region of Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) peeks out from beneath the rings to the right of Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across).

And then this beauty. Look closely - very closely - and you can just make out little Mimas hiding in the shadows:

To the left of Mimas are several bright features in the faint D ring. The innermost of Saturn's medium-sized icy moons, Mimas, is 397 kilometers (247 miles) across.

Gorgeous!

And check out the moons page at the JPL Cassini-Huygens site for more spectacular shots.

What a time to be alive...