New mosaic of Saturn's rings

Post #1by **selden** » 01.09.2006, 17:16

Cassini Significant Events for 08/24/06 - 08/30/06 wrote:the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS)
performed a mosaic of the entire ring system near apoapsis, Cassini's
farthest point from Saturn during the 27th orbit.

Malenfant · Post #2by **Malenfant** » 01.09.2006, 18:19

Should there be a link or a picture in the post above? I can't see one...

Post #3by **selden** » 01.09.2006, 18:21

I subscribe to their e'mail notification service, which is where I saw it. They didn't include a url. A quick search of the cassini pages didn't find it either

But it's something to look forward to!

Malenfant · Post #4by **Malenfant** » 01.09.2006, 20:24

Actually, what I'd kill to see would be a shot of the rings from so close that you can actually see the individual moonlets/boulders/ring particles that make up the ringlets. Must be weird to be at the edge of a gap and just see this big wall of boulders on one side and nothing on the other...

I don't think Cassini's even got the capability to do that though...

Post #5by **selden** » 01.09.2006, 20:43

A quick look at the VIMS data site
http://pds-rings.seti.org/cassini/vims/access.html
suggests that there's a 1 year moratorium on data set releases and the next release won't be until October, anyhow. So the mosaic probably won't be available for a while.

I think Cassini is unlikely to provide any really closeup views of the rings until the end of the mission when it's headed into the planet. The only other time it was really close was during Saturn Orbital Insertion, when it went through one of the gaps, back on July 1, '04. The picture of the Enke Gap is pretty spectacular, but not quite what you're looking for.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06099