Tag: Titan
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NASA preparing to fly Ingenuity Mars drone, enabling future airborne missions
As NASA’s newest Mars rover, Perseverance, continues its own checkouts and tests, work is starting for a new phase of the mission – the Ingenuity helicopter. This first-of-its-kind piece of hardware will demonstrate (non-rocket) powered flight on a world other than Earth for the first time. Data from these flights – expected to begin in…
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Cassini data sheds light on Saturn formation and Enceladus habitability
While its mission ended just over three years ago, data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft continues to help scientists unlock the mysteries of the Saturnian system that contains more than 80 identified moons. In particular, new and updated research has helped determine the drift rate of Titan away from Saturn, in turn leading to a better…
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ESA’s Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan 15 years ago
This mosaic of three frames taken by Huygens during its descent to Titan provides unprecedented detail of a ridge area, including a network of river channels. Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Fifteen years after accomplishing the first-ever landing on Saturn’s moon Titan, lessons learned from the European Space Agency’s Huygens spacecraft continue aiding designers of future…
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NASA picks Dragonfly mission to send a nuclear drone to Saturnian moon Titan
An artist’s conception shows the Dragonfly probe on the dunes of Titan. (NASA / JHUAPL Illustration) NASA has chosen to commit up to $850 million to creating an interplanetary probe unlike any seen before: a rotor-equipped spacecraft that will fly through the smoggy atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon. The Dragonfly mission will be managed…
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Breakthrough Discuss turns spotlight on search for life elsewhere in solar system
Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco shows a graphic that compares the size of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, with the British Isles. (Breakthrough Initiatives Photo) STANFORD, Calif. — Are there microbes falling in the snows of Enceladus? Could a drone fly to biological hot spots on Titan? Is life floating in the sulfurous clouds of Venus?…
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NASA picks a drone for Titan and a return to a comet as prospects for future probes
An artist’s conception shows the sequence leading to the landing of the Dragonfly probe and the deployment of its rotorcraft on Titan. (NASA Illustration) A rotorcraft that could flit around the Saturnian moon Titan and a probe that could bring a sample back from an already-famous comet have emerged as top prospects for a future…
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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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NASA counts down final month of Cassini’s tour of Saturn
Artist’s concept of the Cassini spacecraft during one the mission’s five dives into the uppermost layers of Saturn’s atmosphere before the mission ends Sept. 15. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Cassini orbiter sailed through the tenuous outermost reaches of Saturn’s atmosphere without trouble Monday, performing the first of five close swings nearer to the planet than any…
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Cassini downlinks view of Titan’s methane clouds on third loop inside rings
Cassini took this picture of Titan’s northern cloud bands Sunday from a distance of more than 300,000 miles (500,000 kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute The Cassini spacecraft captured captivating images of wispy methane clouds suspended above Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes as the probe headed for its third shot through Saturn’s ring gap Tuesday. The distant pictures,…
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Cassini downlinks view of Titan’s methane clouds on third loop inside rings
Cassini took this picture of Titan’s northern cloud bands Sunday from a distance of more than 300,000 miles (500,000 kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute The Cassini spacecraft captured captivating images of wispy methane clouds suspended above Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes as the probe headed for its third shot through Saturn’s ring gap Tuesday. The distant pictures,…