Titan flyby next week!

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

NASA ANNOUNCES CASSINI TITAN FLYBY COVERAGE

Saturn's smog-cloaked moon Titan will be examined up
close by the Cassini spacecraft next Tuesday. Cassini will
fly by Titan at 1,200 kilometers (745 miles). In the close
flyby, which is about 250 times closer than its flyby in
July, Cassini's radar will be used for first time to image
the cloud-shrouded Titan.

TELEVISED EVENTS AND PRESS CONFERENCES:

Friday, Oct. 22
--Live satellite interviews on NASA TV, 3 to 7 p.m. EDT

Monday, Oct. 25
--Listen-and-log-on workshop on Titan science objectives,
noon to 1 p.m. EDT. Reporters may attend or participate on
line by calling the JPL Media Relations Office at: 818/354-
5011 for attendance or dial-in information. Supporting images
and graphics will be posted on the Web at the start of the
workshop, at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/media/cassini-102504

Tuesday, Oct. 26
--Live NASA TV commentary on first Titan pictures from the
flyby, 9:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. EDT. The program will air in
several segments.

Wednesday, Oct. 27
--News briefing, quick look at initial images, noon to 1 p.m.
EDT
--Live satellite interviews on NASA TV, 3 to 7 p.m. EDT

Thursday, Oct. 28
-- News briefing, science results, noon to 1 p.m. EDT

Friday, Oct. 29
-- Listen-and-log-on news briefing, summary of science
findings, noon to 1 p.m. EDT.
On-site reporters may ask questions. Off-site reporters who
would like to participate in the briefing should call the JPL
Media Relations Office at: 818/354-5011 for dial-in
information. Supporting Images and graphics will be posted on
the Web at the start of the briefing at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/media/cassini-102904

NASA TV is available on the Web and via satellite in the
continental U.S. on AMC-6, Transponder 9C, C-Band, at 72
degrees west longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz.
Polarization is vertical, and audio is monaural at 6.80 MHz.
In Alaska and Hawaii, NASA TV is available on AMC-7,
Transponder 18C, C-Band, at 137 degrees west longitude. The
frequency is 4060.0 MHz. Polarization is vertical, and audio
is monaural at 6.80 MHz. A full schedule of live news
briefings is available on the NASA TV site at

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/M ... aking.html

Audio only of NASA TV coverage of the press conferences and
commentary sessions will be available by calling: 321/867-
1220/1240/260/7135.

Extensive information on the Cassini-Huygens mission
including an electronic copy of the press kit, press
releases, fact sheets, status reports, briefing schedule and
images, are available on the Internet at

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

&

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

[Seb]

Titan now live on NASA TV..



Windows Media..
http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx

Real Player
http://www.nasa.gov/ram/35037main_portal.ram

Furthest ever live broadcast?

[HankR]

There's a PDF of a flyby mission description at the Cassini website. It's interesting to compare the computer-generated views in the PDF with the view seen in Celestia. This flyby is very spectacular to watch, BTW. Saturn moves thru Orion on the approach, and the Sun rises over Titan on the departure.

- Hank

[ElPelado]

When is the fly by??

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I think the approach imaging etc has already started. Closest approach is IIRC on Tuesday 26th.

Go to the Cassini Raw images page, select "Narrow Angle" and "Titan", and click on the "search images" arrow at the bottom of the screen to see the latest raw images. There's some real corkers in there so far.

This one looks pretty interesting already...

[lostfisherman]

Well it's this week now, nearly nine pages of new titan images to look through. Hard work eh?
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/ ... seLatest=1

http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/ ... geID=25431



Does anybody know what the MT3 filter does? Hold your head back from the screen and look at this
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/ ... geID=25435

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

This explains what the filters are:
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/raw-images.cfm#q15

Yes, one side looks darker than the other. I think that's a seasonal effect in the atmosphere. (I think the north-south axis is pointing sideways in these images).

This is another cool one taken with CL1 and UV3 filters:
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/ ... geID=25452

I like how you can see the haze all the way round the satellite, and some of the dark side too

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Ooh, there's a really cool image of Iapetus there too:
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/ ... geID=25278

That's the dark side, illuminated by Saturn-shine (and presumably with a long exposure too)!!

cel://PhaseLock/Sol:Cassini/Sol:Saturn:Iapetus/2004-10-22T10:06:54.36004?x=97k/YY9uaPGKDA&y=34BcTrgu+8T//////////w&z=rRBFTEkilHR6/////////w&ow=0.326314&ox=0.373548&oy=0.850778&oz=-0.173661&select=Sol:Saturn:Iapetus&fov=0.101792&ts=0.100000<d=0&rf=38663&lm=68

[t00fri]

Here is a false color enhanced version of a Titan photo from Oct. 24th

Looks like if there was a big hole in the clouds
Bye Fridger

[lostfisherman]

The ultraviolet pictures do illustrate just how much atmosphere the filters have to block out to see Titans surface; when compared the UV images actually look a lot larger.

As for Iapetus, using what I presume is Saturn shine Is quite a novel way of resolving contrast problems!

[HankR]

Here's another new view of Iapetus from Cassini. That large crater on the terminator was previously unseen.

Compare the view in Celestia: cel://PhaseLock/Sol:Cassini/Sol:Saturn:Iapetus/2004-10-17T05:52:51.87277?x=u8Wxr2X6BkOLDA&y=qNzvvpWTe7///////////w&z=kMA7ZgtaZVx6/////////w&ow=0.232236&ox=0.583828&oy=0.396371&oz=-0.669404&select=Sol:Cassini&fov=0.286256&ts=1.000000<d=0&rf=35&lm=70.

- Hank

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Actually, you know what - I'm gonna cover my ass here and explicitly state that I could be completely wrong about what Titan looks like under there,
and for all I know it's really a cryogenic liquid hydrocarbon swamp .

Though to be honest, the thing that gets me wondering is the borders of the dark areas - they look a little too curved from here (assuming I'm
interpreting what I'm seeing correctly) to be faulted boundaries like on Ganymede. Looks like they've been flooded over with something...

[Michael Kilderry]

Aha!

So Titan looking like Ganymede probably was just your own wishful thinking! I knew it!

The pictures are still pretty fuzzy yet. My wishful thinking says that it will end up looking like one of the planets I made up, called Pramarr.

Michael Kilderry

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Aha!

So Titan looking like Ganymede probably was just your own wishful thinking! I knew it!

That plus a fair amount of assumption based on educated guesswork. But I still feel the need to cover my bases here

Guess we'll find out soon though...

[Michael Kilderry]

Evil Dr, what do you think the chances are that Titan's surface ends up looking like the planet Pramarr I made up for the Lera Solar System, Part One? You've seen it haven't you?

Michael Kilderry

[symaski62]

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06116



This map of Titan's surface, generated from images taken during Cassini's approach to Saturn, illustrates the imaging coverage planned during Cassini's first very close Titan flyby on Oct. 26, 2004.

Colored lines enclose regions that will be covered at different imaging scales as Cassini approaches Titan. Based on previous observations, it is anticipated that the size of the smallest visible surface features will be approximately five times larger than the image scale. Thus, the smallest visible features within the region bounded by the red curve should be about 1 to 1.2 kilometers (0.6 to 0.9 mile) across. The yellow X marks the predicted landing site for the Huygens probe, the target of the camera's highest-resolution mosaic. Images of this site taken near closest approach may have higher resolution than indicated here. Features a few hundred meters or yards across may be discernible, depending on the effect that relative motion between the spacecraft and Titan has on the quality of the images.

The images used to create the map were acquired between April and June 2004 using a narrow, 938-nanometer filter that sees through Titan's atmospheric haze to the surface. These images have been processed to enhance surface details. Scales range from 88 to 35 kilometers (55 to 22 miles) per pixel. It's currently winter in Titan's northern hemisphere, so high northern latitudes are not illuminated, resulting in the map's upper limit at roughly 45 degrees north latitude.

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 Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. 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.

[HankR]

At this moment, as shown by Celestia, the apparent diameter of Titan as seen from Cassini is about three times that of the Moon as seen from Earth. And it's getting larger by the second. If all goes well, by tomorrow night we should be looking at images of Titan with astonishing detail. What is perhaps the last remaining major body in the solar system with a virtually unseen surface is about to be revealed. Prepare to be blown away. This is tremendously exciting. It really doesn't get any better than this. I'm just sorry that Carl Sagan isn't here to see it with us.

- Hank

[t00fri]

Here is a false color-enhanced image from this morning Tue 26th 8am UTC:



Bye Fridger

[symaski62]

[t00fri]

Aha, my Titan texture in Celestia is not so bad, it seems . Soon we will be ready for improvements.

Bye Fridger