Monday, February 15, 2010

Dione from Voyager

Cassini continues to pour down imagery from the Saturnian system.  However, decades earlier, the Voyagers gave us our first close-up look at Saturn's moons.  As Voyager 1 approached, it took this view of Dione over Saturn's clouds.  I posted this years ago, but this version was done using improved techniques.
This is a color view taken of the wispy trailing hemisphere.
 
As Voyager 1 got closer, it got a much better view, as shown here, where the boundary between the wispy trailing hemisphere and leading hemisphere is clearly visible.

The mosaic below is Voyager's closest view of Dione.
 Voyager 2 did not come nearly as close to Dione, but it did get some interesting views. This is its closest view.  There is some overlap with Voyager 1's high resolution mosaic, but parts of this image show areas poorly seen in the first Voyager flyby.
Processed Images Copyright Ted Stryk, Raw Data Courtesy NASA/JPL