Saturn says 'cheese'.By combining 126 snapshots of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft spacecraft Vehicle designed to operate, with or without a crew, in a controlled flight pattern above Earth's lower atmosphere. Since streamlining is not needed in the high vacuum of this environment, a spacecraft's shape is designed according to its mission (see last fall, astronomers Famous astronomers and astrophysicists include: Directory: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A
Recorded during a 2-hour interval on Oct. 4, 2004, when Cassini cruised around Saturn at a distance of 6.3 million kilometers, the true-color mosaic highlights several features: storms in Saturn's southern hemisphere, subtle color variations across the rings, the structure of the narrow F ring, and the shadow cast by the planet across its rings, which are made of dust and ice. The composite image, which NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. and the Space Science Institute in Boulder Boulder, city, United States Boulder, city (1990 pop. 83,312), seat of Boulder co., N central Colo.; inc. 1871. A Rocky Mountain resort and a suburb of Denver, it is the seat of the Univ. of Colorado (1876). , Colo., released on Feb. 24, resolves details as small as 38 km across. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion