Cassini Probe Within 30 Miles of Saturn Moon Enceladus

Cassini Probe Within 30 Miles of Saturn Moon Enceladus

www.sciencedaily.com

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make an unprecedented "in your face" flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wed., March 12.

The spacecraft, orchestrating its closest approach to date, will skirt along the edges of huge Old-Faithful-like geysers erupting from giant fractures on the south pole of Enceladus.

The source of the geysers is of great interest to scientists who think liquid water, perhaps even an ocean, may exist in the area.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I imagine there should be some interesting photos/research from getting a probe close to Enceladus. There's mention of 3-4 more passes of this moon, this year.


www.sciencedaily.com
www.nasa.gov...

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 11-3-2008 by anhinga]

Thats really cool....too bad we'll probably only get to see the photo's after they have been "touched up" for public viewing. A private space program is the way to go.....if you want the truth.

reply to post by QBSneak000


....have to agree with you there, and some of the 'touching-up' is beyond obvious, where you see blatant changes/pixels altered, usually along the planet/ moon's 'edge' of atmosphere.

Ive seen some really bad ones of the moon.....but more of the center of the picture focused on a couple of craters. It was like they were trying to erase something from it.

...parallel update: on this mission, Cassini appears to be discovering daily. A story yesterday about rings around another of Saturn's moons, Rhea:

Saturn's second-largest moon Rhea may have a small ring around it - the first time a moon has been found to have a ring, an international team of researchers reported.

Rhea lies within a magnetized bubble that surrounds Saturn and contains trapped ions and electrons....

tvnz.co.nz...

Back to Enceladus, personally, this is exciting to consider:

In terms of a spacecraft passing by a space body, this is like dipping its antenna into the pool. And, in this case, astronomers want to learn what materials compose that pool.

There is little danger to the spacecraft at this close distance. Trajectory experts will make sure that Cassini doesn’t impact the moon. And, the particles in the geyser plume are so small they little chance of damaging the spacecraft.

The ice-water particles contained in the plumes are thought to be about one ten-thousandth of an inch in diameter, or roughly the width of a human hair. In fact, Cassini crosses the path of much larger particles on a regular basis on its exploratory journey around Saturn and its moons

www.itwire.com...

[edit on 11-3-2008 by anhinga]

....update, this BBC article is a good read about the decision to get this close to the moon; plus this about another craft's even closer approach near Mars:

The Viking mission may have gone to within 20km of the Martian moon Phobos, but there is nothing in deep Solar System exploration history to compare with the pass being attempted by Cassini.

news.bbc.co.uk...

...on the edit: thought to include this page, a couple of specs for Cassini:

Since the speed of the radio signals is known (they travel at the speed of light), the round-trip distance can then be computed.

There are other factors to consider, too. How long did it take for the ranging tones to "turn around" inside the spacecraft's electronics? That miniscule delay is calculated from pre-launch testing.

How long did it take the ranging tones to travel through the cable from the computer in the Deep Space Network (DSN) signal-processing center out to the radio telescope antenna before leaving Earth? The DSN finds that value while calibrating the system prior to each tracking period.

And how far did the Earth move while the ranging pulses were traveling to the spacecraft? The navigators draw upon data gathered over years and years of observations by the astronomical community....

All three of these types of data that Cassini-Huygens uses for navigation, are subject to the round-trip-light time of around three hours across the distance between Earth and Saturn.

saturn.jpl.nasa.gov...

[edit on 11-3-2008 by anhinga]

Update, from the photo/day website:

apod.nasa.gov...

The first type of terrain has more craters than occur near Enceladus' South Pole. The other type of terrain has few craters but many ridges and grooves that may have been created by surface-shifting tectonic activity.

Exogeologists are currently poring over this and other Cassini images from last Wednesday's flyby to better understand the moon's patch-work surface, its unusual ice-geysers, and its potential to support life.

Cassini is scheduled to fly by Enceladus at least nine more times, including an even closer pass of just 25 kilometers this coming October.

[edit on 17-3-2008 by anhinga]

Some people fly kites,
some people have remote helicopters,
I want a Cassini.

b

Originally posted by anhinga

I'm having a sudden craving for vanilla ice cream!