[CASSINI] Some really nice false-color UV images of the rings are now online, kids!

....Had this one forwarded to me this morning. Apparently the boys at
U. of Colorado have been doing some rather nice image analysis. While
Pioneer and Voyager's images were stunning, these new ones put those
to shame as expected. To wit:

NOTE: I've no press text for this image, but based on what I've seen
on the JPL Cassini page here's what these images appear to be:

http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports...s/C-B_Ring.jpg

....Going from left to right this image shows the outer section of the
C ring and the inner regions of the B ring. If I got my rings straight
- contradictory-sounding, yes I know - the inner B ring starts about
halfway across the JPG - the really dark dirty too
blue-green-to-be-aqua band. The red colors denote what's apparently
rocky debris, while the aqua colors represent water ice in various
concentrations Whether the brighter colors denote higher or lower
concentrations is your guess as well as mine, natch.

http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports...ges/A_Ring.jpg

....This appears to focus on the A ring. Going again from left to
right, we see the Cassini Division, followed by a rather thin but
prominent ring of red before we get to the A ring itself. Some mixing
of red and aqua here gradually gives way to the segregated but mixed
aqua gradients as we move outwards from Saturn to the right of the
image. Finally, the last "in your face" band of red corresponds to the
location of the Encke gap as seen on other images on the JPL Cassini
page.

I *really* need to get caught up on my pro web work so I can have time
to **** with all those Cassini images, dammit...

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

OM wrote:
...Had this one forwarded to me this morning. Apparently the boys at
U. of Colorado have been doing some rather nice image analysis. While
Pioneer and Voyager's images were stunning, these new ones put those
to shame as expected. To wit:

NOTE: I've no press text for this image, but based on what I've seen
on the JPL Cassini page here's what these images appear to be:

http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports...s/C-B_Ring.jpg

snip

Variations in brightness can be hard to interpret. It seems like you
need to know what side of the rings you're seeing (sunlit side or dark
side) and what direction the sunlight is coming from to be able to tell
what's what. That doesn't even tell you everything. Since you can't
see the stars shining through the gaps or low-density regions it's hard
to tell a gap from a shadow from dirt (or dark rocks).

I *really* need to get caught up on my pro web work so I can have time
to **** with all those Cassini images, dammit...

The "Latest Images" paage hasn't been updated since Saturday so at least
you're not falling further behind!

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedi...browseLatest=1

--
bp
Proud Member of the Human O-Ring Society Since 2003