Back in the 1980s, NASA’s Voyager spacecraft made a brief flyby of Saturn’s moons, providing us with a tantalising glimpse of new worlds. Now, the Cassini mission has finished the job, providing us with high-resolution, colour maps of Saturn’s six icy moons.
The images aren’t just photos — they actually incorporate data from the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums, which makes the data more easily apparent to the human eye, which would struggle with the minor colour differences between surfaces in natural light only. NASA has compared the new maps side-by-side with the Voyager images from 30 years ago, and the differences are incredibly stark.
The Cassini mission has been examining Saturn for a decade now — it celebrated its 10th birthday this past June. Among other feats, it discovered a large underground ocean of liquid water on one of Saturn’s moons earlier this year. Its latest accomplishment might not be so significant, but is sure is pretty. [NASA via Gizmag]