Astronomy Picture of the Day
August 28, 2015

Dione (Part I)
Dione (Part I)

Credits: NASA/JPL-Catech-Space Science Institute ad Dr Paolo C. Fienga/LXTT/IPF for the additional process. and color.

The NASA's Cassini Spacecraft gazes out upon a rolling, highly cratered landscape in this oblique view of Saturnian moon Dione. A record of impacts - large and small - is very well preserved almost all over the moon's ancient and Icy Surface.


This image was obtained in Visible Light, with the NASA - Cassini Spacecraft Wide-Angle Camera during a close Fly-By of the icy Saturnian moon Dione, which took place on August 17, 2015. The view was acquired from an altitude of approximately 470 miles (such as about 756,3898 Km) above the Surface of Dione and it has an image scale of roughly 150 feet (such as appprox. 45,72 meters) per pixel. North on Dione is up.


This frame (which is an Original NASA - CASSINI Spacecraft's b/w and NON Map-Projected image published on the NASA - Planetary Photojournal with the ID n. PIA 19651) has been additionally processed, contrast enhanced, magnified, in order to allow the vision of the slightest details of the Surface, Gamma corrected and then re-colorized - according to an educated guess (or, if you wish, an informed speculation) carried out by Dr Paolo C. Fienga - in Absolute Natural Colors (such as the colors that a human eye would actually perceive if someone were onboard the NASA - Cassini Spacecraft and then looked outside, toward the Saturnian moon "Dione"), by using an original technique created - and, in time, dramatically improved - by the Lunar Explorer Italia Team. Different colors, as well as different shades of the same color, mean, among other things, the existence of different Elements (Minerals) present on the Surface of Dione, each having a different Albedo (---> Reflectivity) and Chemical Composition.


Note: it is possible (but we, as IPF, have no way to be one-hundred-percent sure of such a circumstance), that the actual luminosity of Dione - as it is in this frame - would appear, to an average human eye, a little bit lower than it has been shown (or, better yet: interpreted) here.



News visualized: 600 times


©2011-2023 - Powered by Lunexit.it - All rights reserved