Mars Climate Orbiter also failed just before entering orbit too - in this case, due to a metric/English conversion error! This is its lone image - unfortunately, not nearly as detailed as the Mars Observer image.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Mars in 1993
In the Summer of 1993, it appeared a new era of space exploration was going to a major boost. After Pionneer Venus was launched in 1978, no U.S. planetary probes were launched until 1989. Magellan was sent off to Venus, and Galileo to Jupiter. It was now time for Mars Observer to enter Mars orbit, and begin advance studies of the planet. Unfortunately, this would have to wait until the 1997 arrival of Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor. Mars Observer lost contact with earth (it seems now that a fuel line exploded) just before entering Mars orbit, never to be heard from again. Below are the only two resolved images it ever took of Mars. I colorized the image based roughly on somoe wide angle data, with a little editing to make it look a bit more realistic.
Mars Climate Orbiter also failed just before entering orbit too - in this case, due to a metric/English conversion error! This is its lone image - unfortunately, not nearly as detailed as the Mars Observer image.
Mars Climate Orbiter also failed just before entering orbit too - in this case, due to a metric/English conversion error! This is its lone image - unfortunately, not nearly as detailed as the Mars Observer image.
Venus from Cassini
Venus Through the Eyes of Cassini
On its way to its 2004 arrival at Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft made two flybys of Venus. However, due to the proximity of Venus to the sun (a big deal for a spacecraft designed for Saturn) combined with the fact that, due to budget constraints, much of its software was still in development, very little science data was taken. No imaging was done except for a sequence during which Venus serendipitously passed through the spacecraft's field of view. Since the Venusian clouds are nearly blank at visible wavelengths, this allowed it to be used to test Cassini's cameras. Most of the images look quite blank. However, one wide angle frame shows the terminator (the night/day boundary), and faint markings in the clouds can be seen. This false color image is a testament to the power of the Cassini camera - it was taken in red light, and most views of Venus in red light look blank. This little picture of the clouds of Venus makes me excited about the views to come with the arrival of the Europe's Venus Express mission in the spring.
On its way to its 2004 arrival at Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft made two flybys of Venus. However, due to the proximity of Venus to the sun (a big deal for a spacecraft designed for Saturn) combined with the fact that, due to budget constraints, much of its software was still in development, very little science data was taken. No imaging was done except for a sequence during which Venus serendipitously passed through the spacecraft's field of view. Since the Venusian clouds are nearly blank at visible wavelengths, this allowed it to be used to test Cassini's cameras. Most of the images look quite blank. However, one wide angle frame shows the terminator (the night/day boundary), and faint markings in the clouds can be seen. This false color image is a testament to the power of the Cassini camera - it was taken in red light, and most views of Venus in red light look blank. This little picture of the clouds of Venus makes me excited about the views to come with the arrival of the Europe's Venus Express mission in the spring.
Well, I had a huge post for today, and accidentally deleted it before posting it. I will develop all large future posts in a safer way. So for today, I will post an image or two of Mimas, a moon of Saturn. At 400 km across, it is only slightly smaller than Enceladus, but it shows no sign of activity. A large crater visible in some of the images gave it an uncanny resemblance to the Death Star!
At 6:49 PM EDT August 1, the Cassini spacecraft will make its closest approach to Mimas, coming within 62,000 km of the moon (it was originally going to be 49,000km, but this was sacrificed to allow Cassini to fly closer to Tethys on a future orbit, a moon that may be contributing particles to Saturn's rings). This is not a superclose flyby by Cassini standards, but it should be spectacular none-the-less. In the mean time, here is a super-resolution version of the closest Voyager view, taken by Voyager 1 in 1980 from 127,000 km (these distances can't be directly compared, because Cassini's cameras are far superior to Voyager's). It is made from the best three images from a six image set taken by Voyager.
At 6:49 PM EDT August 1, the Cassini spacecraft will make its closest approach to Mimas, coming within 62,000 km of the moon (it was originally going to be 49,000km, but this was sacrificed to allow Cassini to fly closer to Tethys on a future orbit, a moon that may be contributing particles to Saturn's rings). This is not a superclose flyby by Cassini standards, but it should be spectacular none-the-less. In the mean time, here is a super-resolution version of the closest Voyager view, taken by Voyager 1 in 1980 from 127,000 km (these distances can't be directly compared, because Cassini's cameras are far superior to Voyager's). It is made from the best three images from a six image set taken by Voyager.
Saturn's Active Moon Enceladus From Voyager and Cassini
Today it appears that the Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence of active volcanism at the south pole of Enceladus. This is exciting! This is a world that is no wider than the state of Tennessee, yet it seems to have active volcanos at its south pole (based on infrared maps)
This has caused me to go back into my archives, and work on some old Voyager images of the place. Cassini has now imaged this world down to the size of a small desk. But up until now, we were dependent on a few Voyager images from 1981 to study this world. This is the view we usually saw, taken at closest approach (a little more than 100,000 km).
I have been working with the next best Voyager set, which show the North pole of Enceladus very well (Cassini won't be able to see it for a few more years because it is in winter - remember that a year in the Saturnian system is 26 earth years). This set, while somewhat poorer in resolution, has a distinct advantage - OGV color. Voyager could not see red light. Most color images of the outer solar system from Voyager 1 and 2 are therefore done in GVUV color, where a green light image us used for red, violet is used for green, and ultraviolet for blue. This set has an orange filtered image, allowing OGV (Orange Green Blue ) which is not as far off from RGB, which is traditionally used for color imaging (Red Green Blue). I have included the raw images underneath the color composite for perspective. They are shown at their orignial size, but the color composite is enlarged (due to a super-resolution image created from the grayscale data).
Edit: Here is a link to my sequence of Enceladus approach images. The above row is a sequence of color images taken as Voyager-2 approached (unfortunately, since various color combinations had to be used, it isn't very even). The lower row shows the same sequence, but resampled to be about the same size. It creates a strange appearance of snapping in to focus. While it is useful for comparison - you can really see Enceladus rotating better than when the different sizes are shown, it looks artifically smooth in the early images.
http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/3981/encapproach3qv.jpg
This has caused me to go back into my archives, and work on some old Voyager images of the place. Cassini has now imaged this world down to the size of a small desk. But up until now, we were dependent on a few Voyager images from 1981 to study this world. This is the view we usually saw, taken at closest approach (a little more than 100,000 km).
I have been working with the next best Voyager set, which show the North pole of Enceladus very well (Cassini won't be able to see it for a few more years because it is in winter - remember that a year in the Saturnian system is 26 earth years). This set, while somewhat poorer in resolution, has a distinct advantage - OGV color. Voyager could not see red light. Most color images of the outer solar system from Voyager 1 and 2 are therefore done in GVUV color, where a green light image us used for red, violet is used for green, and ultraviolet for blue. This set has an orange filtered image, allowing OGV (Orange Green Blue ) which is not as far off from RGB, which is traditionally used for color imaging (Red Green Blue). I have included the raw images underneath the color composite for perspective. They are shown at their orignial size, but the color composite is enlarged (due to a super-resolution image created from the grayscale data).
Edit: Here is a link to my sequence of Enceladus approach images. The above row is a sequence of color images taken as Voyager-2 approached (unfortunately, since various color combinations had to be used, it isn't very even). The lower row shows the same sequence, but resampled to be about the same size. It creates a strange appearance of snapping in to focus. While it is useful for comparison - you can really see Enceladus rotating better than when the different sizes are shown, it looks artifically smooth in the early images.
http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/3981/encapproach3qv.jpg
Ted's Planetary Images
I have decided to end my Xanga planetary blog, and to move the posts here. Enjoy!
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