MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
Contacts:
Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Preston Dyches 720-974-5859
Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
Image Advisory: 2006-087 June 21, 2006
NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft Captures Saturnian Moon Ballet
The cold, icy orbs of the Saturn system come to life in a
slew of new movie clips from the Cassini spacecraft showing
the ringed planet’s moons in motion.
In addition to their drama and visual interest, scientists
use these movies to refine their understanding of the orbits
of Saturn’s moons. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., use the same images, and the
orbital positions of the moons, to help them navigate Cassini.
The spacecraft is nearing the halfway mark of its prime
four-year tour of Saturn and its moons.
Pictures capturing several moons in one frame are strikingly
beautiful, especially when deliberately imaged in red, green
and blue spectral filters, which allow scientists to create
a color photo. One recent color image shows two of Saturn’s
most fascinating moons, icy-white Enceladus and orange,
haze-enshrouded Titan.
Still images and five short movie sequences acquired over the
past six months are being released today at:
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and
http://ciclops.org .
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA,
the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA’s Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two
onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at
JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science
Institute, Boulder, Colo.
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