[酷图] 卡西尼号最新拍摄的土星(2004年04月02日)

土星上的斑点

卡西尼号的视野正随着其距离土星越来越近而变得越来越清晰。土星南半球大气层中新的
特征现在已经开始显现出来。

飞船窄角照相机2004年03月08日拍摄的几张照片已经组合成为一张自然色彩的照片。为了
提高可见度，照片的对比度和色彩进行了少许增强处理。此时，飞船距离土星5640万千米
，略大于日地距离的三分之一。照片的比例大约是338千米/像素。土星相比上一次在四个
星期前拍到的彩色照片中增大了百分之二十三。

接下来的几个月里，大气层的特征，诸如土星南半球的两个暗淡的小斑点将开始变得清晰
。这些斑点位于南纬38度区域。

照片下半部分还可以见到土星的几颗卫星：土卫一(大小398千米)在左边，刚刚位于光环下
面；土卫四(大小1118千米)在左边，土卫一下面；土卫二(大小499千米)在右面。为了提高
可见度，这些卫星的亮度进行了增强处理。

卡西尼—惠更斯号是美国国家航空航天局、欧洲航天局和意大利航天局的合作项目。喷气
推进实验室作为位于帕萨迪那的加州理工学院的下属部门，负责为位于华盛顿的美国国家
航空航天局空间科学部管理这一项目。成像小组位于科罗拉多州圆石城的空间科学协会。


关于卡西尼—惠更斯号的更多信息，请访问http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov和卡西尼号成像
小组主页http://ciclops.org。

提供: 美国国家航空航天局、喷气推进实验室、空间科学协会
发布: 2004年04月02日 (PIA 05385)

原文如下：

As Cassini closes in on Saturn, its view is growing sharper with time and now reveals new atmospheric features in the planet's southern hemisphere.
Atmospheric features, such as two small, faint dark spots, visible in the planet's southern hemisphere, will become clearer in the coming months. The spots are located at 38 degrees south latitude.

The spacecraft's narrow angle camera took several exposures on March 8, 2004, which have been combined to create this natural color image. The image contrast and colors have been slightly enhanced to aid visibility.

Moons visible in the lower half of this image are: Mimas (398 kilometers, or 247 miles across) at left, just below the rings; Dione (1,118 kilometers, or 695 miles across) at left, below Mimas; and Enceladus (499 kilometers, 310 miles across) at right. The moons had their brightness enhanced to aid visibility.

The spacecraft was then 56.4 million kilometers (35 million miles) from Saturn, or slightly more than one-third of the distance from Earth to the Sun. The image scale is approximately 338 kilometers (210 miles) per pixel. The planet is 23 percent larger in this image than it appeared in the preceding color image, taken four weeks earlier.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.


Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute