[FPSPACE] FW: Cornell Chronicle: Cassini images on display in New York City

Sat May 3 01:29:19 EDT 2008



>From: Cornell Chronicle Online <cunews at cornell.edu>
>Reply-To: Cornell Chronicle Online <cunews at cornell.edu>
>To: CUNEWS-PHYSICAL_SCIENCE-L at cornell.edu, CUNEWS-SCIENCE-L at cornell.edu
>Subject: Cornell Chronicle: Cassini images on display in New York City
>Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 16:27:16 -0400
>
>Chronicle Online e-News
>
>With Cornell's help, a glorious Saturn steps into the spotlight in New York 
>City
>http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May08/cassini.amnh.html
>
>May 2, 2008
>
>By Lauren Gold
>LG34 at cornell.edu
>
>In the four years since NASA's Cassini-Huygens spacecraft arrived at Saturn 
>and began snapping pictures, Cassini's cameras have sent nearly 140,000 
>images back to researchers on Earth.
>
>The data and images -- as well as data from infrared, radar and ultraviolet 
>detectors on the orbiter and images from the Huygens probe on the surface 
>of the planet's moon Titan -- have given researchers valuable new 
>information about Saturn, its rings and moons, and the evolution of the 
>solar system as a whole. But the images have also captivated nonscientists 
>with their sheer beauty.
>
>Now, 62 of those images are on display at Manhattan's American Museum of 
>Natural History, along with associated graphics and a quarter-scale model 
>of the spacecraft. The exhibit, "Saturn: Images From the Cassini-Huygens 
>Mission," opened April 26 and will be in place until March 29, 2009.
>
>It was one ethereal image -- of the planet and all its rings, in delicate 
>detail and backlit by the sun -- that set the planning for the exhibit in 
>motion in 2006.
>
>"It glowed," said Elizabeth Bilson, retired administrative director for 
>Cornell's Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, who saw the image in 
>Cornell Alumni Magazine. "I thought, it is not only science but also sheer 
>aesthetic pleasure."
>
>Bilson floated the idea of a museum exhibit to colleague and friend Joe 
>Burns, a member of the Cassini imaging team and Cornell professor of 
>astronomy.
>
>"Everybody knows how beautiful the rings are," said Burns, who is also the 
>Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering and a vice provost for 
>research at Cornell. "But the variety we've seen and some of the phenomena 
>we've seen have been really surprising. The satellites have been more 
>beautiful than we expected. And the science has been much better than we 
>expected."
>
>With postdoctoral researchers Matt Tiscareno and Matt Hedman, Burns 
>selected about 100 images collected by the spacecraft since 2004. Bilson, 
>graphic designer Judy Burns (Joe Burns' wife) and other members of the 
>Cassini imaging team added input.
>
>"We tried to choose images that were beautiful and also contained 
>interesting planetary findings. On this mission, that was easy to do -- the 
>show has no murky photos that might appeal only to science geeks," said 
>Burns.
>
>When the Manhattan museum and other institutions showed interest, the team 
>worked with Cornell's University Photography and Eastman Kodak Co. to 
>refine and print the images. The exhibit is supported by NASA, Kodak and 
>the Arthur Ross Foundation. Burns is guest co-curator, with museum 
>associate curator Denton Ebel and curator Mordecai-Mark Mac Low.
>
>"Everybody contributed -- it's been magnificent," said Burns.
>
>Meanwhile, the exhibit, which will come to Cornell's Herbert F. Johnson 
>Museum of Art after its Manhattan debut, may be just the beginning of 
>Cassini-inspired art.
>
>Using images from the mission (as well as historical Saturn images from 
>Olin Library's History of Science collection), composer Roberto Sierra, the 
>Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Cornell, will spend 
>the summer at work on an original composition in honor of the ringed 
>planet.
>
>The Cornell Symphony Orchestra will debut the piece -- and perform Gustav 
>Holst's "The Planets" -- at the annual meeting of the Division for 
>Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in Ithaca in 
>October. The orchestra is conducted by assistant professor of music Chris 
>Kim.
>
>And the Cassini-Huygens mission itself, which was originally scheduled to 
>end this July, recently got the nod from NASA to continue for another two 
>years.
>
>Which is most welcome news, said Burns. "Because we have not seen all we 
>want to see, by a long shot."
>
>The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European 
>Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory 
>(JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, 
>Calif. manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, 
>Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at 
>JPL.
>
>=====
>
>Saturn images captured by Cassini mission now on view at American Museum of 
>Natural History
>
>By Kanika Arora
>
>A selection of never-before-seen images of Saturn, its rings and moons are 
>now on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
>
>"Saturn: Images From the Cassini-Huygens Mission" features 50 dramatic 
>photographs captured by NASA's Cassini orbiter and the European Space 
>Agency's Huygens lander. Launched on Oct. 15, 1997, Cassini was the first 
>spacecraft to orbit Saturn. The images, taken in visible and infrared light 
>and radar, have been hand-picked by a team of Cassini scientists.
>
>The exhibition, which features both up-close-and-personal images in small 
>individual views and super-large mosaics, is divided into four sections: 
>Saturn (the planet and its atmosphere), Ringed World (about Saturn's 
>rings), Titan and Enceladus (Saturn's geologically active moons) and Many 
>Moons (Saturn's other moons).
>
>Among its most dramatic images are photographs of:
>
>* Bizarre cyclones, high-speed winds and bolts of lightning, including 
>"Dragon Storm," a photo of an Earth-sized thunderstorm in Saturn's southern 
>hemisphere;
>
>* Dramatic color variations of the ringed planet, including a pale 
>orange-brown view of Saturn from Earth;
>
>* Titan, the largest of Saturn's more than 60 moons, taken by the Huygens 
>probe, which separated from Cassini and parachuted to the moon's surface in 
>2004. Images reveal an Earthlike landscape with rivers and lakes (made of 
>liquid methane) flowing into basins and Titan's dense atmospheric cover, 
>which is mainly made of nitrogen.
>
>* Giant geysers of ice particles erupting from the smaller icy moon, 
>Enceladus, whose surface temperature hovers at about -200 degrees Celsius.
>
>* Iapetus, Saturn's third-largest moon, whose equatorial mountain range on 
>its heavily cratered surface resembles the outer ridge of a walnut shell.
>
>* The sun illuminating Saturn from one side, with the rings casting shadow 
>on the planet, and the planet's shadow obscuring the rings on the other 
>side.
>
>==
>
>Kanika Arora, MPA '07, is a Cornell Chronicle writer in New York City.
>
>--
>
>
>Chronicle Online
>312 College Ave.
>Ithaca, NY 14850
>607.255.4206
>cunews at cornell.edu
>http://www.news.cornell.edu
>For subscription information:
>http://www.news.cornell.edu/subscribe.shtml
>
>