This image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows three moons — Rhea (top), Titan and Mimas (bottom). Titan appears fuzzy because we only see its cloud layers and light refracts within its atmosphere, extending the crescent. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.The three moons shown here — Titan (3,200 miles or 5,150 kilometres across), Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometres across), and Rhea (949 miles or 1,527 kilometres across) — show marked contrasts. Titan, the largest moon in this image, appears fuzzy because we only see its cloud layers. And because Titan’s atmosphere refracts light around the moon, its crescent “wraps” just a little further around the moon than it would on an airless body. Rhea (upper left) appears rough because its icy surface is heavily cratered. And a close inspection of Mimas (centre bottom), though difficult to see at this scale, shows surface irregularities due to its own violent history.
This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Titan. North on Titan is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 25, 2015.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (2.0 million kilometres) from Titan where the image scale is 75 miles (121 kilometres) per pixel. Mimas was 1.9 million miles (3.1 million kilometres) away with an image scale of 11.4 miles (18.4 kilometers) per pixel, while Rhea was 2.2 million miles (3.5 million kilometres) away with an image scale of 13.1 miles (21.1 kilometres) per pixel.
With just a month to go until the 2016 opposition of Mars, the Red Planet is now visible very low in the southeast before midnight for observers in the heart of the UK. Mars and ringed planet Saturn are presently separated by just over 7 degrees — a low power, wide-angle binocular field of view. The waning gibbous Moon passes by on the mornings of 25—26 April.
Researchers using data from the Cassini mission have put together a new global spectral map of Enceladus, a moon with icy jets spewing into space from a sub-surface ocean.
Many of you may have tracked down an asteroid with binoculars or a telescope, but have you ever seen one with the naked eye? If not, then June presents you with an opportunity to see the brightest, 4 Vesta, at a close opposition. What’s more, ringed planet Saturn lies close by to act as a convenient guide.
