Cassini-Huygens Mission Celebrates Anniversary

SATURN DAILY

Cassini captures a Saturnian storm. Desktop available - 1024x768.

Pasadena CA (JPL) Oct 19, 2005
On the eighth anniversary of the launch of the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, the teams involved can look back at a string of remarkable discoveries.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is one of the largest and most advanced planetary exploration missions ever launched. It consists of two parts - the Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe.

Cassini is currently orbiting Saturn and taking pictures and measurements of Saturn and its moons, rings and magnetosphere. Huygens successfully parachuted down through the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, at the start of 2005.

The mission was launched on 15 October 1997 and took nearly seven years to reach Saturn, arriving on 1 July 2004. The route it took to Saturn involved fly-bys of Venus, Earth and Jupiter to help give it the energy necessary to reach Saturn.

Saturn itself is the second largest planet in the Solar System. It is made of gas with a solid core and a liquid layer, and is famous for its rings which are made chiefly of ice with some rocky material acting as a colouring agent.

So far, it also has 34 named moons (47 in total), including Titan that is known to have a thick nitrogen atmosphere rich in methane and is thought to bear similarities with our planet in its 'pre-biotic' stage (just before life began).

Since arriving at Saturn on 1 July 2004, Cassini has taken over 35 000 images of Saturn and its magnificent rings and its amazing moons. Numerous discoveries have been made about the rings, the moons, the dynamic magnetosphere and the planet itself.

Cassini's remarkable instruments provided the first glimpses of Titan's surface and gained a global picture of this hazy world.

Cassini's radar provided the first pictures of Titan's surface. The orbiter also provided the first detailed global view, including possible volcanoes, rain clouds, flow features, lakes, craters and vast dune fields, as well as other puzzling terrain. A soup of complex hydrocarbons, including benzene, has been detected in Titan's atmosphere.

But the highlight of the mission so far is clearly the lifting of the veil on smog-covered Titan. At around 11:30 UT, 14 January 2005, ESA's Huygens probe landed the surface of this distant world. This event makes it the only landing to take place in the outer Solar System and the furthest from Earth.

The Huygens probe showed that Titan's surface has Earth-like processes and morphology, complete with evidence for methane rain, erosion, stream-like drainage channels and dry lake beds.

SATURN DAILY

Dione In Full View Above Saturn

Pasadena CA (JPL) Oct 18, 2005
The cratered and cracked disk of Saturn's moon Dione looms ahead in this mosaic of images taken by Cassini on Oct. 11, 2005, as it neared its close encounter with the icy moon.

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.