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Written by Administrator on
Friday, 25 July 2008
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 NASA extends Cassini mission 2 years to July 2010
16 April 2008 - Launched 10 and a half years ago, the joint NAS/ESA/ISA Cassini mission has been exploring Saturn, it's breathtaking rings, and its many moons since it arrived at the planet in Jun 2004. The mission was originally slated to end in July of this year, but NASA has decided to extend Cassini's mission an additional two years to 2010. The extension will allow Cassini to further study Saturn's interesting moons like Titan and Enceladus. Apart from a handful of glitches, such as during the recent Enceladus plume fly-by, Cassini has been functioning as designed.
|  Enceladus plume loaded with organics
27 March 2008 - Despite a software glitch that shut down a key instrument during Cassini's fly-through of the odd water and gas plume spewing from the Saturnian moon Enceladus, much valuable data was still obtained. Scientists are still sifting through the mountains of data, but this surprising bit was recently announced: the plume was filled with prebiotic material not unlike that found in comets.
|  Cassini uncovers evidence of subterranean oceans on Titan
22 March 2008 - Scientifically speaking, Titan is the moon that just keeps on giving. The joint NASA-ESA probe Cassini which has been studying Saturn and its moons for the past few years, has discovered that there might be an underground ocean on the puzzling moon Titan. Using radar mapping, astronomers have realized that the planet's surface has shifted, while its rotational access remains the same.
| Cassini suffers software gltich during water plume flythrough
16 March 2008 - As we reported last week, the Saturn-studing probe Cassini was set to fly through a gas and water plume gushing from the surface of the moon Enceladus. Unfortunately, as Cassini neared the plume, it was hit by a software glitch that prevented important instruments for the chemical study of the plume from turning on in time. Regardless, the probe's cameras did take the most-detailed pictures of the icy Saturnian moon ever.
| Cassini prepares to dive through Saturnian moon's ice plume
11 March 2008 - The Saturn-studying Cassini probe is set to fly through a water plume ejecting from the moon Enceladus. The geyser like phenomenon on the Saturnian moon spouts a plume of water, dust, and gas from its southern polar region. Enceladus is one of only three outer solar system bodies on which eruptions have been observed (the other two being the moon Io around Jupiter and Triton around Neptune), so the fly-through will undoubtedly reveal important science about the geyser phenomenon.
|  Saturn's moon Rhea may also have rings
08 March 2008 - Our planetary neighbor best known for its spectacular set of rings may be getting some competition from one of its companions, the moon Rhea. The equipment aboard the orbiting Cassini probe first detected evidence for the rings back in 2005 during a close fly-by of the 950-mile wide moon.
| Saturn: Catch the rings while you still can
23 February 2008 - Our solar system's Lord of the Rings is strutting its stuff right now. Saturn is so delightfully angled towards Earth that we can see its beautiful ring system in all its icy glory. But be sure to take a look now, for just like Earth, Saturn's axis and orbit will angle take the rings to an angle where we won't get such picture perfect views.
| Titan: More hydrocarbons than you
19 February 2008 - As it would turn out, the location on our planet with the largest reserves of organic material are not the oil reserves under Saudia Arabia or the natural gas pockets in Russia - it's on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. Observations from the orbiting probe Cassini have revealed that not only are there literal lakes of organic methane and ethane - the hydrocarbons actually rain from the clouds.
|  NASA planetary scientist to advise ST08 crew
11 February 2008 - Carolyn Porco, the lead imaging scientist on the join NASA/ESA Cassini mission to Saturn has been tapped by the Star Trek (2008) crew to provide her expertise to the graphics teams. She will be ensuring that the sets, mattes, and planets are all realistic and at least scientifically plausible, following a time-honored Star Trek tradition of bringing aboard scientific advisors to make the film that much more real.
| Saturn's rings older than we thought
17 December 2007 - Data gathered by the Voyager probes in the 1970s seemed to indicate that Saturn's rings were about 100 million years old and born from the debris of a destroyed meteor or small moon. Newer observations contest that assumption and point to the rings being as old as the solar system itself and having formed at athe same time as Saturn.
| Cassini to fly through moon's geyser
01 August 2007 - The Cassini spacecraft will perform its closest flyby ever of Saturn's ice-spewing moon Enceladus early next year, moving directly into its icy polar geyser for a deep-space shower.
Cassini's third flyby of Enceladus, set for March 2008, will swing it within 19 miles (30 kilometers) of the saturnian moon-almost six times closer than the spacecraft's closest pass to it in 2005. The tight trajectory will move Cassini directly into the icy geyser at the moon's southern pole, said NASA official James Green during a teleconference today.
| Two more active moons discovered around Saturn
13 June 2007 - Saturn’s moons Tethys and Dione are flinging great streams of particles into space, according to data from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini mission to Saturn. The discovery suggests the possibility of some sort of geological activity, perhaps even volcanic, on these icy worlds.
|  Constantly colliding clumps found in Saturn's rings
22 May 2007 - Saturn's largest ring might appear solid when viewed from Earth, but closer inspection by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveals it is composed of tightly packed clumps of particles in constant collision with one another. |
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"I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg."
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