Tag: Cassini
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Cassini’s farewell to Saturn
Cassini’s wide-angle camera recorded 80 images in just over two hours on Sept. 13 for a final full mosaic of Saturn. This view includes 42 of those images taken in red, green and blue spectral filters to create a natural color mosaic. Six of Saturn’s moons — Enceladus, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Pandora and Prometheus —…
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Cassini results still keeping scientists busy
Cassini took this image of Saturn in April 2016 from a distance of approximately 1.9 million miles (3 million kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Scientists examining data from the Cassini mission’s final months reported this week unexpected measurements of Saturn’s gravity field and outer atmosphere, suggesting they may have to revisit theories about the planet’s…
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Cassini crashes into Saturn, ending 20-year mission
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Dutifully beaming back data to the very end, NASA’s long-lived Cassini probe slammed into Saturn’s atmosphere at some 77,000 mph Friday, blazing like a shooting star as it was ripped apart and incinerated in the final chapter of an enormously successful mission. Cassini program manager at JPL, Earl…
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Fighting for science to the last: Cassini mission ends with smash-up at Saturn
Cassini project manager Earl Maize hugs Julie Webster, spacecraft operations team manager, at Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory just after the mission’s end. Program scientist Linda Spilker is at left, and Jim Green, the head of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, is at right. (NASA Photo / Joel Kowsky) Before its destruction, the bus-sized…
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Farewell, Cassini: a 20 year mission to Saturn comes to a life-protecting end
Goodbye, Cassini. And thank you. After a 20-year mission, 13 in orbit of Saturn, Cassini dived one last time for Saturn’s atmosphere. Over the course of its years at Saturn, Cassini has watched the seasons change on the majestic ringed planet and Titan, made unparalleled discoveries, and opened our eyes about the possibilities of life…
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Cassini races toward fiery mission-ending plunge into Saturn
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION NASA TV coverage of the end of Cassini’s mission begins at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT) Friday, Sept. 15. Thirteen years after reaching Saturn, NASA’s nuclear-powered Cassini spacecraft raced through its 294th and final orbit Thursday, collecting priceless data while hurtling toward a kamikaze-like plunge into the ringed planet’s…
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Cassini orbiter’s team turns Saturn crash into cause for celebration – and for science
An artist’s conception shows the Cassini orbiter zooming through the upper layers of Saturn’s atmosphere, heading for a fiery breakup. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration) Twenty years after its launch to Saturn, NASA has set the Cassini orbiter on a course for certain destruction on Friday – but there’s a decidedly positive spin to the $3.3…
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Hours before its doom, NASA’s Cassini probe takes its parting shots at Saturn
Saturn and its rings star in one of the last raw images sent back by the Cassini orbiter. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute) The final pictures from NASA’s 13-year-long Cassini mission at Saturn are flowing in – and they’re good to the last drop. Or even better, good to the last moonset. Raw images,…
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38 years after Pioneer 11, Cassini enters final 2 weeks of Saturnian mission
Exactly 38 years to the day after Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to encounter the planet Saturn, NASA’s flagship mission to the ringed planet, Cassini, is entering the final two weeks of its storied mission. Cassini’s final timeline will begin on 12 September with “the kiss goodbye” – a gravitational nudge from Titan – that…
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38 years after Pioneer 11, Cassini enters final 2 weeks of Saturnian mission
Exactly 38 years to the day after Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to encounter the planet Saturn, NASA’s flagship mission to the ringed planet, Cassini, is entering the final two weeks of its storied mission. Cassini’s final timeline will begin on 12 September with “the kiss goodbye” – a gravitational nudge from Titan – that…