Rhea Nontargeted Encounter Rev 102 (Feb 2, 2009), Best views of the ice cliffs Options

[Exploitcorporati...]

I've finally gotten around to piecing together the five mosaics from the 2 February pass. The fractured terrain is seen in excellent detail, and under better lighting conditions than the August 2006 encounter. It also looks like some new polar territory is covered in the first couple of mosaics.

[Exploitcorporati...]

Here's the closest view at full resolution, taken at about 98,000-100,000km:

[tedstryk]

Wow! It is rare to get a series of mosaics like that in which all of them are of such high quality.

[Exploitcorporati...]

Yeah, I'm always impressed with the precision with which these observations are carried out, especially with Enceladus. I think that the fact that Rhea is a relatively slow-moving target helps. Four of the five observations here are six-footprint mosaics, and none of them have the gaps apparent in flybys of Tethys or Dione for example.

On a side note, the similarities between Titania/Ariel and Rhea/Dione in comparison seem especially prominent with these images. Also, the linear feature in the south visible in the last view appears to be a scarp based on this and other images. What say the experts here?

[Mariner9]

Wow. Thank you, thank you, thank you for these mosaics.

My math puts the general resolution of the largest one at 625 meters per pixel, making this by far the clearest global view of Rhea that I'm aware of.

The various views of the ridges are spectacular. I could stare at them for hours.

Those of us old enough to remember the Voyager missions also remember a time when the outer solar system moons were expected to be crater scarred spheroids with no appreciable geologic history.

Given the tectonism on view here, it really says something about the outer solar system that Rhea has sometimes been reffered to as the most boring major moon.

[belleraphon1]

As always, Exploitcorporations, you do awesome work.

Been exploring these images while listening to "Symphonies of the Planets". A set of 5 CD's that are recordings from the Voyager space craft radio instruments.... with the readings brought down to audio frequencies... believe me, delving into
space craft images while listening to these CD's brings a whole new dimension to the experience.

There is no such thing as a boring world(let).

Craig

[dvandorn]

I agree, EC, very good work. And the interesting linearities of the terrain show up quite well. I'm almost tempted to say that, at a certain scale, Rhea looks grooved.

-the other Doug

[ngunn]

Rhea has CHARM after all:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/files/20090224_CHARM_Jones.pdf

[stevesliva]

Awesome presentation-- lays out the fields case for an equatorial disk/rings, and mentions the mysterious equatorial patches...

[scalbers]

I've finally gotten around to piecing together the five mosaics from the 2 February pass. The fractured terrain is seen in excellent detail, and under better lighting conditions than the August 2006 encounter. It also looks like some new polar territory is covered in the first couple of mosaics.

Good call EC on the new territory, or should we say rheaitory? Here's an example of the added coverage with N128853 inserted (click for the animated GIF):



Steve

[Stu]

Nice recognition of UMSF in a Tweet from Cassini on Feb 24th......

"Presenter Geraint Jones called out (and showed) Unmanned Spaceflight.com's imaging work at Rhea during todays CHARM telecon! WTG, UMSF"

[scalbers]

Here is an updated map with several images from Rev 102 added. The navigation of various images in the region has been improved as well. The updates cover the northern latitudes of the Saturn facing hemisphere.



Full resolution version is at http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#RHEA

The Rev 102 images are all from the second mosaic in EC's initial post. I'm considering whether to add some further images from the highest resolution (fourth) mosaic.

Steve

[scalbers]

...and here's what it looks like (70% full size) with several images from the highest resolution mosaic added:



Full resolution again at http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#RHEA.

Perhaps some experiments to try would be sharpening some input images, and to try an 8K output map.

That's the latest,

Steve

[scalbers]

Exploit's mosaics are an excellent guide for how to combine the images. Imagery from the fifth mosaic has now been added with some good contributions down south.



Full res mosaic map (now 8K) at: http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#RHEA