24.12.10

Christmas a la Cassini

Since it's Saturnalia, or thereabouts, let's take a look at some of the Cassini images I missed over the past few months:


The familiar icon of a crescent moon is rendered alien in this view of Enceladus bisecting a slender crescent of Saturnian daylight.


Another snap from the same flyby shows Enceladus' characteristic geysers.


Cassini caught a good portrait here of one of Saturn's many smaller, potato-shaped moons: Helene.


Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea, eclipses Titan in a grab for the limelight. Rhea is about a million kilometres away in this image, and Titan 2 million.


Saturn has many cratered, icy moons, but Tethys here shows off one of its most remarkable features: Ithaca Chasma, a massive canyon dwarfed only by Valles Marineris on Mars.

Happy Christmas everyone - whatever planet, moon or ring-system you may call home.

(All images credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.)

5 comments:

Geosomin said...

Merry Christmas Pacian and Space Cat! :)

Michelle said...

Merry Christmas! I wonder why some of the moons are perfectly round while others are not. Hmmm.

Zhoen said...

Good Yule, Happy (belated) Solstice. Wonderfully stark images.

Tinker said...

Happy, merry Merry Christmas, Pacian and Space Cat!

Pacian said...

@All: Thanks, you too!

@Michelle: It's a matter of size, more or less. The more massive moons have stronger gravity, which smooths out their bumps and irregularities.