Cassini & Saturn

I do consider myself to be a “word artist” but the images that Cassini send back to this little blue planet. the 3rd rock from the sun. have left me speechless.

Although in the media it is called Cassini the actual name of the spacecraft is ,’Cassini-Huygens’, named after astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

It was a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites.

The mission ended this day 2 weeks ago. Signal was lost at 7:55:46 AM EDT on September 15, 2017.

But without further ado below some of the breathtaking images by Cassini. I hope they will leave you in awe.

Half an hour after the tiny moon Prometheus tore into this region of Saturn’s F ring, the Cassini spacecraft snapped this image just as the moon was creating a new streamer in the ring

Saturn’s moon, Atlas, imaged on April 12, 2017

Approaching the moon Dione, with Saturn in the background, on October 11, 2005

A true color image of Titan’s colorful south polar vortex captured before a distant flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan on June 27, 2012.

The wavemaker moon, Daphnis, is featured in this view, taken as the Cassini spacecraft made one of its ring-grazing passes over the outer edges of Saturn’s rings on January 16, 2017. Daphnis (5 miles across) orbits within the 26-mile wide Keeler Gap.

This natural color image shows Titan’s upper atmosphere–an active place where methane molecules are being broken apart by solar ultraviolet light and the byproducts combine to form compounds like ethane and acetylene. The haze preferentially scatters blue and ultraviolet wavelengths of light, making its complex layered structure more easily visible at the shorter wavelengths used in this image. Imaged at a distance of approximately 9,500 kilometers (5,900 miles) from Titan on March 31, 2005.

Rhea before Titan. Saturn’s moons Rhea and Titan overlap in this image made on June 11, 2006. Titan is lit from behind, illuminating its hazy atmosphere, with Rhea blocking some of that from Cassini’s view. Is it only me or does remind anyone else of Dart Vader?

Roiling storm clouds and a swirling vortex at the center of Saturn’s famed north polar hexagon, in an image from NASA’s Cassini mission taken on November 27, 2012. The camera was pointing toward Saturn from approximately 224,618 miles (361,488 kilometers) away

A swing high above Saturn by the Cassini spacecraft revealed this stately view of the golden-hued planet and its main rings. The view is in natural color, as human eyes would have seen it. This mosaic was made from 36 images in three color filters obtained by Cassini’s imaging science subsystem on October 10, 2013.

Northern hemisphere storm in 2011

RIP Cassini