Saturn gets star treatment in trio of Hubble movies

Saturn gets star treatment in trio of Hubble movies
14:31 21 March 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Hazel Muir







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From left to right, the moon Tethys (bright dot near rings), the large moon Titan and its shadow appear in this image of Saturn taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (Image: NASA/ESA/E Karkoschka/U Arizona)
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Images of Saturn from the Hubble Space Telescope have been seamlessly woven together into three movies of the majestic planet rotating. Each movie highlights a rare view of the planet during its 30-year waltz around the Sun.
The first movie shows the moons Titan and Tethys orbiting Saturn when the planet's rings were tilted nearly edge-on towards Earth in 1995. This edge-on alignment happens just once every 15 years.
Titan's shadow appears first, followed by Titan itself. Then Tethys appears on the left from behind the planet. The 15-second movie was created from Hubble images taken over 10.5 hours.
The second movie shows Saturn with its rings at maximum tilt towards Earth, which again occurs once every 15 years. The movie zooms in on the banded clouds of the planet's southern hemisphere, where the blue and white spots are giant storms. This 24-second movie was created from Hubble images taken over 24 hours in 2003.
The third and longest movie shows four icy moons circling Saturn in 1995, when the rings were nearly edge-on to us. Enceladus appears first, followed by Mimas and Dione. They all cast shadows onto Saturn. There's a fleeting view of Tethys as it moves behind the planet on the right. This 30-second film was made from Hubble images taken over 9.5 hours.
Hubble only recorded about a dozen images for each event. Astronomers then used software to generate hundreds of "in between" frames to make the movies continuous.