Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Massive Mountain Range Imaged On Saturn's Moon Titan
The tallest mountains ever seen on Titan -- coated with layers of organic material and blanketed by clouds -- have been imaged by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
"We see a massive mountain range that kind of reminds me of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the western United States. This mountain range is continuous and is nearly 100 miles long," said Dr. Bob Brown, team leader of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
During an Oct. 25 flyby designed to obtain the highest resolution infrared views of Titan yet, Cassini resolved surface features as small as 400 meters (1,300 feet). The images reveal a large mountain range, dunes, and a deposit of material that resembles a volcanic flow. These data, together with radar data from previous flybys, provide new information on the height and composition of geologic features on Titan.
If Titan were Earth, these mountains would lie south of the equator, somewhere in New Zealand. The range is about 150 kilometers long (93 miles) and 30 kilometers (19 miles) wide and about 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile) high. Deposits of bright, white material, which may be methane "snow" or exposures of some other organic material, lie at the top of the mountain ridges.
For more info visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini or http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
"We see a massive mountain range that kind of reminds me of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the western United States. This mountain range is continuous and is nearly 100 miles long," said Dr. Bob Brown, team leader of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
During an Oct. 25 flyby designed to obtain the highest resolution infrared views of Titan yet, Cassini resolved surface features as small as 400 meters (1,300 feet). The images reveal a large mountain range, dunes, and a deposit of material that resembles a volcanic flow. These data, together with radar data from previous flybys, provide new information on the height and composition of geologic features on Titan.
If Titan were Earth, these mountains would lie south of the equator, somewhere in New Zealand. The range is about 150 kilometers long (93 miles) and 30 kilometers (19 miles) wide and about 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile) high. Deposits of bright, white material, which may be methane "snow" or exposures of some other organic material, lie at the top of the mountain ridges.
For more info visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini or http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
NASA Mars Orbiter Photographs Spirit and Vikings on the Ground
Taken from the NASA web site
NASA Mars Orbiter Photographs Spirit and Vikings on the Ground
12.04.06
New images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show three additional NASA spacecraft that have landed on Mars: the Spirit rover active on the surface since January 2004 and the two Viking landers that successfully reached the surface in 1976. The orbiter's high-resolution camera took a dramatic photograph of Spirit's twin rover, Opportunity, at the edge of a Martian crater two months ago.
Besides providing new portraits of these robotic emissaries, the images provide scientists valuable high-resolution information about the surrounding terrain at each site. This aids both in interpreting other orbital data and in planning activities for surface missions. The new images are available online at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu . They are among the earliest from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's primary science phase, which began in November.
NASA Mars Orbiter Photographs Spirit and Vikings on the Ground
12.04.06
New images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show three additional NASA spacecraft that have landed on Mars: the Spirit rover active on the surface since January 2004 and the two Viking landers that successfully reached the surface in 1976. The orbiter's high-resolution camera took a dramatic photograph of Spirit's twin rover, Opportunity, at the edge of a Martian crater two months ago.
Besides providing new portraits of these robotic emissaries, the images provide scientists valuable high-resolution information about the surrounding terrain at each site. This aids both in interpreting other orbital data and in planning activities for surface missions. The new images are available online at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu . They are among the earliest from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's primary science phase, which began in November.
