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Observations in the Saturn system during approach and orbital insertion, with Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS)

Sotin, C.; Brown, R. H.; Baines, K. H. +23 more

The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer observed Phoebe, Iapetus, Titan and Saturn's rings during Cassini's approach and orbital insertion. Phoebe's surface contains water ice, CO{2}, and ferrous iron. Iapetus contains CO{2} and organic materials. Titan's atmosphere shows methane fluorescence, and night-side atmospheric emission that may be C…

Monitoring atmospheric phenomena on Titan

Drossart, P.; Gendron, E.; Lebonnois, S. +7 more

For the past 8 years (1998-2005), we have used adaptive optics imaging (with VLT/NACO and CFHT/PUEO) to explore Titan's atmosphere, which is currently scrutinized in situ by the Cassini-Huygens mission. In the course of our work, we have found variations, such as as seasonal and diurnal effects, as well as temporary features in the southern polar …

Thermal emission of spherical spinning ring particles. The standard model

Leyrat, C.; Ferrari, C.

A simple new thermal model was developed to study the effects of the spherical shape of ring particles, of their finite thermal inertia, and of their spinning properties on the rings thermal emission. Ring particles are assumed to be scattered in a monolayer,

a structure that might exist at least in the population of large particles embedded …

CCD astrometric observations of Phoebe in 2003-2004

Qiao, R. C.; Yu, Y.; Shen, K. X. +5 more

In 2003-2004, we obtained 115 new observations of Phoebe, the 9th Saturnian faint satellite (visual magnitude of about 16.5). We used a large CCD detector (2048×2048 pixels) mounted on the 1.56 m astrometric reflector at the Sheshan Station, near Shanghai. In our reduction, an up-to-date catalogue of stars, UCAC2 (Zacharias et al. 2004), was chose…