[X] My Assistant

[um3k]

Here are all the images from Cassini's recent Pandora encounter:




(final 5 images in next post)

[um3k]

(continued from previous post)



I'll post a color image soon, if someone else doesn't beat me to it.

Pandora is a very strange place, indeed.

[um3k]

Here's color (IR3, UV3, P0+GRN; top left), as well as a 3d anaglyph (top right) and a cross-eyed stereo pair (bottom).
JPEG (low quality, fast download):
PNG (high quality, slow download):

[dvandorn]

Is it just me, or do most of the craters on Pandora seem to be in advanced states of erosional degradation?

Also, there is a highly interesting pattern of radial spokes within the crater roughly midway between "top" and "bottom" in thiese images, about a quarter of the width of the images to the right of the terminator.

-the other Doug

[volcanopele]

Probably not erosion. I suspect that dust from the F-ring has mantled the surface, giving it an overall muted appearance, by shallowing smaller craters and covering over the smallest craters.

[dilo]

um3k, I had same idea about producing false color (IR3, UV3, GRN) image, then an enhanced color version (lot of work to minimize cosmic rays tracks):

[um3k]

um3k, I had same idea about producing false color (IR3, UV3, GRN) image, then an enhanced color version (lot of work to minimize cosmic rays tracks):

Very cool! I've made a super-res image, I'll upload it soon. It is made of three images, I can't do more than that due to motion issues. I didn't do much cosmic ray removal, either. But it's still pretty decent.

[um3k]

Here's that superres I promised you:

[tedstryk]

Here's that superres I promised you:

Nice work! I can't wait to see what that will do when we have raw data to use!

[dilo]

Here's that superres I promised you:

Interesting!... is it possible to remove jpeg artifacts in order to better see details?

[Decepticon]

Interesting!... is it possible to remove jpeg artifacts in order to better see details?

Lots of topics on google...

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&rls=GGLG...tifacts&spell=1

[Phil Stooke]

um3k's super-res pic is very nice... I hadn't noticed the set of grooves near the terminator before (I'm only geting very brief glimpses of things). I'm very fond of grooves.

Phil

[um3k]

Thank you for your compliments, everyone! I think I might do a rotation movie later today.

[um3k]

Here's that rotation movie I promised:


Sorry, no noise reduction.

[dilo]

Finally, thanks to um3k animantion, I was able to do make 3D Pandora images:
anaglyph: crossed eyes:
Imperfections are due to slight illumination change...

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Those grooves make it look even more like Phobos. By the way, http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1186.pdf suggests that the grooves on Phobos are not crackes in its actual structure produced by the Stickney impact, but are instead tracks plowed in the regolith by big ejecta blocks from Stickney as they bounced and rolled across the surface.

[Toma B]

Finally there is oficial image of Pandora on Cassini main page...
Nice!!!



Cassini's best close-up view of Saturn's F ring shepherd moon, Pandora, shows that this small ring-moon is coated in fine dust-sized icy material.

Craters formed on this object by impacts appear to be covered by debris, a process that probably happens rapidly in a geologic sense. The grooves and small ridges on Pandora (84 kilometers, or 52 miles across) suggest that fractures affect the overlying smooth material.

The crisp craters on another Saturn moon, Hyperion, provide a contrasting example of craters on a small object (see PIA07740).

Cassini acquired infrared, green and ultraviolet images on Sept. 5, 2005, which were combined to create this false-color view. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 52,000 kilometers (32,000 miles) from Pandora and at a Sun-Pandora-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 54 degrees. Resolution in the original image was about 300 meters (1,000 feet) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.

[Phil Stooke]

Bruce commented (some time ago) on a suggestion that the grooves on Phobos may be caused by ejecta from its big crater stickney rather than as surface expressions of deep fractures.

This reference:

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/do...fobjectid=36756

suggests that Mars basin ejecta did the deed instead. Personally (IM not-so-H O) I think Murray does a better job than Wilson and Head of making the case for ejecta. I prefer a fracture explanation myself, and I have suggested previously that the fractures responsible may be more like terrestrial jointing, produced by relaxation after excavation from a parent body. At any rate, fractures or ejecta, the tie to Stickney is very dubious.

This dispute is why I have a particular interest in scrutinizing small bodies for evidence of grooves. It's nice to see a few on Pandora.

Phil