Enceladus on a knife edge

saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/im...ils.cfm?imageID=1904

Many thanks to all who came to the IAS December presentation last night, Ring World and also the latest JPL images of Saturn and its Moons. It was a great evening and hello to Liam who is a big fan of the Cassini Mission, I will have some more images to share in the New Year.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Merry Christmas from
Cassini/Saturn Outreach

WOW ... that shot really does show just how thin those rings are!

"Knife edge" is a great description alright Deirdre.

Glad to hear you had a good night. I wish I lived closer to such events :roll:

Deirdre et al,

The work being produced by these remote missions is beyond description and makes me wonder at times if (expensive) manned missions are necessary.

Anyway, this is great publicity for NASA and fully justified. The edge-on photo of Saturn's rings is a killer photo and I seem to recall reading somewhere (NASA APOD?) that they are only 1 km thick!!!

Anthony.

saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/im...ils.cfm?imageID=1790

This photograph by Cassini the robot has made the top 10 in the editors choice in Time magazine 2005. www.time.com/time/potw/2005_editors_choice/

Its a beautiful image of Saturn and Dione, some of the images taken by humans in the sequence and in the other photo selections are interesting but horrific.


The rings are from a few metres, to just under 1 kilometre thick but over 200,000 miles across and if they were around the Earth they would almost reach the Moon.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Cassini/Saturn Outreach

hi Deirdre,

beautiful photo of the Saturnian system. It really is amazing how delicate the rings are.

unfortunately, the next two occasions Saturn's rings will appear edge-on from Earth will be when the planet is within 10 degrees of the Sun (2009 and 2025). The next favourable opportunity is not until 2038! A rare event indeed!

John