CHARM -- Probing the Mysteries of Iapetus
The next "Cassini-Huygens Analysis and Results of the Mission" (CHARM) teleconference is Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2007, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Scientists representing various disciplines will present.

The 90 page pdf of slides has been posted

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/products/CHARM.cfm

edit : a preliminary version of the Iapetus SAR (Oct. 5 unfocused and uncalibrated reduction) is on p 89

Wow. Great sneak preview of the teleconference. J. Spencer's diagrams on evolution of the frost migration model span 90 million years. Looking forward to hearing description of this.

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I really like the SAR stuff. I did not expect that almost the whole hemisphere would be covered. Some nice details of Aimée in northern hemisphere and Henri in the southwestern part. A pity that the equatorial ridge not well placed to be "pictured".
Without the albedo patterns, it is really difficult to imagine that this is Iapetus.
Reminds me Radar pictures of Mercury taken from Earth.
Marc.

I was really impressed with the radar resolution as well, Marc. Made me appreciate how, uh...weird, frankly, Titan's surface must be by comparison...

At 2x6km resolution, it doesnt do Iapetus justice (recall the best Titan SAR is about 0.35km), but the observation worked well - the flipside of low resolution is wide coverage.

I like the remark on p.4 'inbound unilluminated...good opportunity to do RADAR imaging' which is a
roundabout way of saying it was all but useless to optical remote sensing, I guess we might as
well let you RADAR guys do something rather than let it go to waste...

Overall an awesome flyby, though, for which Tilmann Denk in particular must take much a lot of
credit. But we really see how the combination of Cassini's instruments together really help us
figure out what is going on

On to T39!

Radar scan of the dark side was quite interesting.

Utility of the technique (budget willing) to a Uranus orbiter is evident if craft arrival occurs during period when significant portions of satellite surfaces are in shadow.

With continued increases in on-board spacecraft computing power, dual usage of with any communications dish, and Alan Stern's increased spacecraft power project (recently reported in Aviation Week and Space Technology) maybe this is how we get to see dark areas of Miranda and the other Uranian satellites.

{or we just wait till orbits go edge on to sun again . . . }

Anyone know how to participate in this teleconference? JPL say it's not their gig.

Edit: The good folk at JPL have been back to say that this is indeed an event put on by the Cassini project science team - its just not a JPL *media* gig. I'm happy to clarify and even happier that JPL PAO are avid UMSF'ers !