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NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI
Saturn and its rings provide a backdrop for the planet's largest moon, Titan, in a true-color picture captured by NASA's Cassini orbiter on May 6.
Saturn's shades of blue and butterscotch are changing along with the planet's seasons, as illustrated by a fresh batch of true-color photos from the bus-sized Cassini orbiter.
When Cassini arrived at Saturn, seven years ago, the planet's northern hemisphere had a tint of azure blue. Since then, Saturn has gone through an equinox and a significant shift in seasons. Summer is approaching in the north, and winter is coming to the south.
The seasonal change means ultraviolet radiation is intensifying in the north, resulting in an increasing amount of yellowish haze. Meanwhile, there's a reduction in radiation hitting the southern hemisphere, and the haze is clearing as a result. The presence of the ring shadow enhances the effect in Saturn's south.
"The reduction of haze and the consequent clearing of the atmosphere make for a bluish hue: the increased opportunity for direct scattering of sunlight by the molecules in the air makes the sky blue, as on Earth," Cassini's imaging team reports in today's advisory. "The presence of methane, which generally absorbs in the red part of the spectrum, in a now-clearer atmosphere also enhances the blue."
Although Saturn has seasons like Earth's, the fact that a Saturnian year lasts 29.5 times longer than an Earth year means that the southern hemisphere's winter solstice won't occur until May 2017. And if Cassini's mission managers have their way, the orbiter will be around to see it.
"The Cassini mission was recently given rave reviews by a panel of planetary scientists and NASA program managers for its contributions to our understanding of the solar system, a circumstance that bodes well for a well-funded continuing mission over the next five years," the imaging team's leader, Carolyn Porco of the Colorado-based Space Science Institute, reported in an email today. "Despite the fact that we can't know exactly what the next five years will bring us, we can be certain that whatever it is will be wondrous."
Saturn's largest moon, Titan, takes center stage in one of Cassini's newly released views. The moon measures 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers) across and is covered with its own brand of hydrocarbon-rich haze. Titan is the only moon in the solar system to have an opaque atmosphere. Cassini snapped the picture you see above from a distance of about 483,000 miles (778,000 kilometers).
Here are more pictures that show Titan's true colors:
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI
Saturn's rings obscure part of Titan's disk in an image from NASA's Cassini orbiter. Parts of the rings appear dark near the center of this view because of the shadow cast by the planet. This image was obtained on May 16 at a distance of about 1.9 million miles (3 million kilometers) from Titan.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI
Titan's recently formed south polar vortex stands out in this natural-color view of Titan from the Cassini spacecraft. The vortex may be related to the approach of southern winter and the development of a polar "hood" of denser, high-altitude haze. This picture was acquired on July 25 at a distance of about 64,000 miles (103,000 kilometers).
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI
NASA's Cassini spacecraft looks toward the night side of Titan and sees sunlight scattering through the periphery of the moon's atmosphere, creating a ring of color. The picture was taken on June 6 from a distance of about 134,000 miles (216,000 kilometers).
More colors from Cassini:
- Slideshow: Cassini's greatest hits
- Saturnian storm goes wild
- Take the ultimate flight around Saturn
- Saturn floats on gossamer rings
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
remember, government never created a single job.
spammer..................
But Romney vowed to create 12 millions jobs in his first term.
Only in Socialism society where government created jobs, is Romney "socialism" now?
Cleek... I might agree with you but........ THIS IS A SCIENCE VINE!!!
look.. I love talking polisci. but please lets just talk about the article at hand.
Now....... since this is a true color photo... does any notice a blue tinge to the atmosphere?.... Knowing that Titan's composition is filtering "blue"... I just wonder would you "see" a blue sky if one could stand on Titan.... just a thought. It does look beautiful. I say lets send a rover to Titan... but instead of "wheels" it should be a GEV... ground effect or "hover" craft.
I don't see the blue, when I get back to my science desk top, I will spend an hour or so checking out these photos, I plan to focus on titan but man what an awesome pic from cassini. Thanks for giving me an excuse to ponder the photos longer than I expected.....
Really outstanding pictures and I was especially interested in the photo showing Titan's atmosphere so clearly. Good stuff.
But what's happening on Mars?
Did they find signs of life and are all huddled around a table trying to decide how to handle the announcement?
There will be worms.
Oh, and I agree, Cleek and his kind need to slither back to the political threads and peddle their papers there. This is a science blog and we're not interested in your political or religious babble.
I normally don't engage, but I'm not feeling well this morning and I've got short fuse. I'm tired of all this political nonsense and pointless religious zealotry. You have your beliefs, I have mine and none of it has a place on this thread. We're talking about science here. You need to go elsewhere.
lol..... skip.... man you and your worms......
Most beautiful planet in the Sol system.
The top photo nearly brings tears to my eyes....thanks for posting it Alan. There is not a tour company on earth that would not have that scene on a brochure if they could even dream of getting their hands on some tickets to resell...gawd, people travel from all points to see the pyramids, the grand canyon, whales jumping in a bay, all grand scenes of nature......imagine the first humans on a spaceship when they go over to the observation window and what do they see?? For centuries people will board cruise ships to Saturn just for that vista alone. What an inspiration to build the uss enterprise. Or any space ship for that matter (if it's gonna take three lifetimes to build the big ship, maybe I can get the galileo finished in one).
What about the spokes, big lightning discharges from the edge of the rings down to saturn itself? Any recent photos on them, I studied them hard in the eighties looking for something in specific, now, no word at all, as if they never existed!! Those would make some great shots for cassini too!!
Awesome pictures!
Winter is coming.
These views are fantastic, the Cassini mission, might be hope, any hope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens
Launched in 1997 has 1990's technology at most.
It is miracle on the Earth end of this "telescope" that this mission is enduring.
It is true that man cannot go there and remain alive, but would not it be better to live comfortable on well cared for Earth?
This is a matter of motivation, ostensibly these motivations, were set in the generation of Great Depression. We can see where "technology" can lead us to permanent war, where the thoughts of peace have gone to the grave? Those experiencing economic collapse, exploding technology, constant warfare held out that hope given the same energy we would save the World for peace and children. Those same generations were concerned about spoiling the children, but remembering their youth wanted to relive it through the eyes of their children.
How can this be related to Cassini?
It is safe to explain that there should have been a plan to have another Cassini, a follow up, if for no other reason than advancing technology. This is the difference between the one shot wonder and one attempt of showing one generation what can be done, in the hope that it will be done. But it is clearly beyond one generation to have survived a depression, the march of technology and countless wars and then to permanently inspire another generation that it could not help but to spoil. That follow up mission is just a metaphor for how much a society, larger than any individual, has not planned for its future, not planning for the future but actually living it without a plan. True, only tiny fraction of those living at the time sought to portray the future presenting their ideas through mass media to a wider audience. It would seem that those with the imagination did so without actually having much technology succeeded in created the illusion of progress, where the viewer was made complacent by believing the future would arrive all by itself, like a new and improved product.
Missing was the idea that the future needed planning, and seeing the future on the media killed that idea, the idea was planning, not the plan but the act of planning.
How can this not be related to Cassini?
It is safe to point out that if we were to gather all of the ideas of the past, and set out to do worse, we first go to scripture selecting the worst interpretation, when proceed to the legal system selecting the most corrupt laws, then move on to finance and harvest all that was clever legerdemain, then into the judicial to place bias toward prominent men, then to jingoism to chime the alarm bells of conflagration. We cannot stop there, honorable mention goes to, organized religion; just earning a living, and off to the boardroom for silent discussions; for the benefit of moral stockholders, what of monopolies of convenience, bigness like dinosaurs feeding on abundance. How can we do worst, oh we can, we can have the mesmerizing media savvy politician with finger in and a taste from every delicious pie, we can surely select from the successful misanthropes of the past. Politicians are magicians, who can conjure the unlikely and call it American, claim poison snake are harmless and send them to their enemies. The religions man calling for murder one moment, and then accusing the sinner of causing that murder. The money men spending in wild frenzy, and then accusing others of not being frugal, of visiting deals with the devil, and claiming all others to be possessed. And finally, being levitated above all this, to claim sight unseen to have the viewed the face of holiness where truth is revealed. That truth is that all words have only the opposite meaning, all things negative are really positive, and all things false are the real truth.
Here the missing plan has been replaced entirely by gathering the worst of the past and selling as the best of the future, winning by killing all hope, and curiously missing a plan.
If at some time Cassini was to look back at Earth, hoping for a friend, seeing what can see… will it find hope?
"It is true that man cannot go there and remain alive, but would not it be better to live comfortable on well cared for Earth?"
Are you under the impression that that's all life is about?
No one should be forced to suffer...but no one should be denied the chance to seek knowledge, personal experience, and gainful opportunity because some degree of adversity is required.
Great photos! I added them to my desktop screen saver!
Hey C NJ Mom, how in the world did you do that?! I'd love to have these pictures on my computer display!
As on Earth, Mars and Jupiter, never a dull moment on Saturn! Thanks Alan.
These are nice. Alan Thank you.
I don't see any color change. I do love all of this sapce stuff though.
So awesome! I'm really drawn to cosmogony!!!