Cassini images

Here are some amazing images from the Cassini imaging team, courtesy of Emily Lakdawalla's Planetary Society Blog last week.



Dione and Telesto
Dione, Saturn's third largest moon at 1,123 kilometers in diameter, shares the frame with Telesto, a tiny "rock," about 35 kilometers across, that orbits Saturn in the leading Lagrangian point of Tethys' orbit. Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI

(Full blog post at: Dione and Telesto, close on camera but far apart in fact )




Peering through the fountains of Enceladus
Here, unmannedspaceflight.com forum member Astro0 has combined two frames captured by Cassini during its May 18 encounter with Enceladus to include both the backlit plumes and the background imagery: Titan and the rings. Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI / processed by Astro0/unmannedspaceflight.com

Here's Emily's annotated version:



(Full blog post at: The most amazing image of Enceladus Cassini has captured yet )

Geomagnetic Storm this morning!

From the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (via this post by Emily Lakdawalla in The Planetary Society blog):

A geomagnetic storm began at 05:55 AM EST Monday, April 5, 2010. Space weather storm levels reached Strong (G3) levels on the Geomagnetic Storms Space Weather Scale. The source of the storming is an Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejection associated with a weak solar flare that occurred in Active Region 1059 on April 3 at 05:54 AM EST. This is expected to be an isolated storm that should subside quickly. Other than the flare and CME erupting on April 3, this active region has not produced any significant activity. Systems that can be affected include electric power systems, spacecraft operations, high-frequency communications, GPS, and other navigation systems.