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Cassini locks on target CASSINI PHOTO RELEASE Posted: February 23, 2005
Cassini was traveling at more than 13 kilometers per second when it acquired this view, which shows crisp detail on Mimas (397 kilometers, 247 miles across) against the backdrop of Saturn's northern hemisphere. Shadows of the icy rings stretch across the atmosphere and are blurred due to spacecraft motion. The part of Mimas visible here always faces away from Saturn as the moon orbits the giant planet. In scientific language, the moon is said to be "phase-locked." The image has been rotated so that north on Mimas (and Saturn) is up. This view was obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera at a distance of approximately 1.25 million kilometers (777,000 miles) from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 114 degrees. The image was taken using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of infrared and polarized light. Resolution in the image is 7 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced to aid visibility. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. |
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NASA pays tribute to those lost while furthering the cause of exploration, including the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia crews, during this Day of Remembrance memorial from agency headquarters on Jan. 27. (38min 58sec file)
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The Expedition 10 conducts a successful spacewalk outside the International Space Station to mount a German robotic arm and Russian science package to the Zvezda service module's exterior. (5min 07sec file)
One week after the Huygens probe landed on Saturn's moon Titan, scientists hold a news conference to announce additional results and describe more pictures from the mission. (69min 02sec file)