November 9 2006 icy moon encounters |
November 9 2006 icy moon encounters |
Nov 5 2006, 03:26 AM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1887 Joined: 20-November 04 From: Iowa Member No.: 110 |
Using the solar system simulator I found a pass ~100,000 km from Enceladus' south pole.
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showsc=1 Any others planned for this orbit? |
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Nov 5 2006, 06:36 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1276 Joined: 25-November 04 Member No.: 114 |
Finally some Ice moons observations. Lacking as of late.
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Nov 5 2006, 08:36 AM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 159 Joined: 4-March 06 Member No.: 694 |
November 8-9 encounters:
Enceladus Tethys November 20-21 encounters: Mimas Dione December 14-15 encouters: Dione Tethys December 31 encounters: Dione -------------------- I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.
- Opening line from episode 13 of "Cosmos" |
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Nov 6 2006, 10:48 AM
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#4
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
Caution and Note: On the current high inclination orbits, the spacecraft plunges rapidly through Saturn's equatorial plane on the periapsis part of the pass. The result is that moderately encounters are possible with whatever moons happen to be near the plunge-point, but the trajectory won't stay in the equatorial plane and give relatively close encounters with other moons. An advantage is that moons will be able to be seen will be seen from one high "altitude" parts of the pass, giving better views of the poles than tends to be possible from equatorial orbits.
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Nov 6 2006, 02:55 PM
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#5
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Member Group: Members Posts: 159 Joined: 4-March 06 Member No.: 694 |
The November 8-9 encounters of both Enceladus and Tethys are over high southern latitudes.
Enceladus at about 129,000km and Tethys at about 238,000km. The November 20-21 encounters of Dione and Mimas are also both over high southern latitudes. Mimas at about 175,000km and Dione at about 145,000km. The Mimas encounter should fill alot of the gaps in Steve Alber's Mimas maps, especially near the south pole! -------------------- I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.
- Opening line from episode 13 of "Cosmos" |
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Nov 10 2006, 03:53 AM
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#6
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Member Group: Members Posts: 540 Joined: 17-November 05 From: Oklahoma Member No.: 557 |
Two pics have come in so far, one of Enceladus and one of Mimas. Both fairly far out, about 400,000 km for each. Still, the Enceladus pic shows some better resolved... and interesting... features beyond the tiger stripes. This is on the upper left side in the raw picture. The stripes run almost horizontally from the terminator toward the left and downward just a little, and stop about halfway to the edge. This in the upper third of the half disk.
Raw image Mimas pic |
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Nov 10 2006, 05:25 AM
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#7
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Member Group: Members Posts: 159 Joined: 4-March 06 Member No.: 694 |
The mimas image gives a very good view of it's south polar area. But we will see the same area at much better resolution on November 20-21.
The Enceladus image shows alot of the poorly seen areas at about 2.4km/pixel. We will get much better resolution of these areas on May 27, June 28 and September 30 of next year. -------------------- I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.
- Opening line from episode 13 of "Cosmos" |
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Nov 12 2006, 03:21 PM
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#8
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10127 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
I've processed the Mimas and Enceladus pics a bit - you can't perform miracles with these JPEGs, but my interest is in making near-terminator features easier to see. There's a bit of Saturnshine on Mimas.
Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Nov 13 2006, 11:47 PM
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#9
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Member Group: Members Posts: 288 Joined: 28-September 05 From: Orion arm Member No.: 516 |
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Nov 14 2006, 08:19 AM
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#10
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
Nice pictures, Phil. Sadly, from the looks of things, these two lone opnavs are the only images we'll be seeing from this periapsis pass. Due to a combination of bad timing on Cassini's part as well as bad timing on MGS's part and consequent recovery operations, all useful imaging data was lost.
-------------------- |
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Nov 18 2006, 05:49 PM
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#11
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1621 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
Nice to see at least this one Enceladus image. So far I've been able to add a portion of this to my map, at moderately high southern latitudes near 0 degrees longitude. The latest version is at http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#ENCELADUS
-------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Dec 22 2006, 05:35 PM
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#12
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3226 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
While ISS missed Enceladus on this encounter, CIRS got some decent data at Enceladus, revealing the hot spot at the south pole:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09037 -------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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Dec 22 2006, 09:23 PM
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#13
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1621 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
Interesting to see that both views over time show the same embedded cooler region between about 180 and 210 degrees longitude...
-------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Mar 3 2007, 05:59 PM
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#14
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1621 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
In relation to Enceladus I've been gradually adding some high resolution images of those fascinating mid-southern latitudes to my map. The most recent update is available at this URL:
http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#ENCELADUS -------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Mar 3 2007, 09:08 PM
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#15
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Special Cookie Group: Members Posts: 2168 Joined: 6-April 05 From: Sintra | Portugal Member No.: 228 |
In relation to Enceladus I've been gradually adding some high resolution images of those fascinating mid-southern latitudes to my map. The most recent update is available at this URL: Great site. Great work! -------------------- "Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Alan Poe |
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