HR: 13:30h
AN: P13A-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Cassini VIMS at Saturn
AU: * Brown, R H
EM: rhb@lpl.arizona.edu
AF: Lunar and Planetary Lab University of Arizona, 1629 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ United States
AU: Baines, K
EM: blueskies4321@yahoo.com
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA United States
AU: Bellucci, G
EM: giancarlo.bellucci@ifsi.rm.cnr.it
AF: Instituto Fisica Spatio Interplanetario CNR, Via Fossa del Cavaliere, Roma, Italy
AU: Buratti, B
EM: bonnie.j.buratti@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA United States
AU: Capaccioni, F
EM: capaccio@rm.iasf.cnr.it
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO United States
AU: Cerroni, P
EM: priscio@rm.iasf.cnr.it
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO United States
AU: Clark, R
EM: rclark@usgs.gov
AF: NASA Ames Research Center, 245-6, Moffett Field, CA United States
AU: Coradini, A
EM: coradini@rm.iasf.cnr.it
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO United States
AU: Cruikshank, D
EM: dcruikshank@mail.arc.nasa.gov
AF: Observatoire de Paris, 5 Place Jules Jannsen, Meudon, France
AU: Drossart, P
EM: Pierre.Drossart@obspm.fr
AF: Insitute for Planetary Exploration DLR, Rudower Chaussee 5, Berlin, Germany
AU: Formisano, V
EM: formisan@nike.ifsi.rm.cnr.it
AF: Instituto di Astrofisica Spaziale CNR, Via Fossa del Cavaliere, Roma, Italy
AU: Jaumann, R
EM: ralf.jaumann@dlr.de
AF: University of Hawaii, SOEST, Honolulu, HI United States
AU: Matson, D
EM: dennis.l.matson@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA United States
AU: McCord, T
EM: mccordtb@aol.com
AF: Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Napoli, Italy
AU: Mennella, V
EM: mennella@na.astro.it
AF: Cornell University, Astronomy Department, Ithaca, NY United States
AU: Nelson, R
EM: robert.m.nelson@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA United States
AU: Nicholson, P
EM: nicholson@astro.cornell.edu
AF: Cornell University, Astronomy Department, Ithaca, NY United States
AU: Sicardy, B
EM: bruno.sicardy@obspm.fr
AF: Insitute for Planetary Exploration DLR, Rudower Chaussee 5, Berlin, Germany
AU: Sotin, C
EM: sotin@chimie.univ-nantes.fr
AF: Laboratoire de Geophysique et Planetologie, University de Nantes, Nantes, France
AB: The Cassini Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) is an imaging spectrometer on the Cassini spacecraft that covers the spectral range of 0.35-5.2 μm in 352 spectral channels, a nominal instantaneous field of view of 0.5 mrad and an image format of 64x64 pixels. It has completed it's first 7 months in orbit around Saturn. During that time it has made extensive observations of Saturn's rings, it's icy satellites, in particular Phoebe and Iapetus, and had 1 distant and 2 close flybys of Titan. The surface of Phoebe is dominated by water ice and bound water, but it has significant amounts of ferrous-iron-bearing silicates, CO₂ as liquid or gaseous inclusions in minerals, organics, CN compounds and several as yet unidentified compounds. Phoebe's surface composition is consistent with other outer solar system objects Iapetus shows the presence of water ice, bound water, CO₂ complexed in a similar fashion as on Phoebe, organics and several as yet unidentified surface components. The rings are seen by VIMS to be composed of almost pure water ice with small amounts of contamination/coloration that seem to be more abundant in the inner portion of Saturn's rings and in the ring gaps. VIMS has detected radial structure in the composition of Saturn's rings all the way down to the roughly 2-km resolution limit of the data obtained during Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI). Titan is shown to have strong atmopheric fluorescence at 3.3 μm due to methane, a variegated surface of roughly a factor of 2 in albedo contrast that seems mostly due to textural differences rather than compositional differences, and definite evidence of topography and geologic structures.
DE: 6275 Saturn
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly