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In the past six months, we've landed on Mars twice, sent a probe past a comet, and now we've entered orbit around Saturn, 900 million miles from Earth
It's taken almost seven years, but the US/European Cassini probe slipped between the F and G rings of Saturn at a speed of 70,000 kilometers per hour (43,500 miles per hour), fired it's rockets for 96 minutes and became the first spacecraft to orbit around the planet. The Cassini-Huygens mission consists of the Cassini (a NASA built orbiter) that is now in orbit around Saturn, and the Huygens probe (built by the ESA-European Space Agency), which will now try to land on Titan! This has taken twenty years of planning by scientists in the US and 17 nations, and $3.3 billion funded by NASA, the ESA and the Italian Space Agency.
Cassini is huge, about the size of a bus. It's the third largest spacecraft ever launched. Because it's so big, it's had to use four gravity-assists to get to Saturn: Earth, Venus twice, and then Jupiter. This is why it's taken almost 7 years to get there.
Images taken during Cassini's flyby on June 11 suggest that Saturn's moon Phoebe is an ice-rich body coated with a thin layer of dark material.
The rings of Saturn, taken by Cassini on May 11, 2004.
Wavy structures in Saturn's southern hemisphere in a May 15, 2004 image taken by Cassini.
This image was taken by Cassini on June 29, 2004 as it approached Saturn and prepared to enter orbit.
On December 25, Huygens will separate from Cassini and head towards Titan, arriving on January 14, 2005. After a 2.5 hour decent, it will attempt to land on the surface. Titan is blanketed by a thick atmosphere of nitrogen and methane, is believed to have organic compounds resembling those on Earth billions of years before life appeared.
Cassini's mission will last four years, and will make 76 orbits around Saturn and 52 close passes by seven of the 31 known moons.
Because Saturn is so far, it takes more than 80 minutes to transfer radio signals each way, but we can expect some pretty amazing photos to start showing up later today, and for the next four years.
Coverage has already begun on NASA TV (which I don't have...
), but you can also catch the webcasts here.
It's taken almost seven years, but the US/European Cassini probe slipped between the F and G rings of Saturn at a speed of 70,000 kilometers per hour (43,500 miles per hour), fired it's rockets for 96 minutes and became the first spacecraft to orbit around the planet. The Cassini-Huygens mission consists of the Cassini (a NASA built orbiter) that is now in orbit around Saturn, and the Huygens probe (built by the ESA-European Space Agency), which will now try to land on Titan! This has taken twenty years of planning by scientists in the US and 17 nations, and $3.3 billion funded by NASA, the ESA and the Italian Space Agency.
Cassini is huge, about the size of a bus. It's the third largest spacecraft ever launched. Because it's so big, it's had to use four gravity-assists to get to Saturn: Earth, Venus twice, and then Jupiter. This is why it's taken almost 7 years to get there.
Images taken during Cassini's flyby on June 11 suggest that Saturn's moon Phoebe is an ice-rich body coated with a thin layer of dark material.
The rings of Saturn, taken by Cassini on May 11, 2004.
Wavy structures in Saturn's southern hemisphere in a May 15, 2004 image taken by Cassini.
This image was taken by Cassini on June 29, 2004 as it approached Saturn and prepared to enter orbit.
On December 25, Huygens will separate from Cassini and head towards Titan, arriving on January 14, 2005. After a 2.5 hour decent, it will attempt to land on the surface. Titan is blanketed by a thick atmosphere of nitrogen and methane, is believed to have organic compounds resembling those on Earth billions of years before life appeared.
Cassini's mission will last four years, and will make 76 orbits around Saturn and 52 close passes by seven of the 31 known moons.
Because Saturn is so far, it takes more than 80 minutes to transfer radio signals each way, but we can expect some pretty amazing photos to start showing up later today, and for the next four years.
Coverage has already begun on NASA TV (which I don't have...
), but you can also catch the webcasts here.
