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SATURN DAILY
Cassini To Sample Magnetic Environment Around Titan
by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 21, 2011


Artist's concept of the Feb. 18, 2011, flyby of Saturn's moon Titan by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is set to skim close to Saturn's moon Titan on Friday, Feb. 18, to learn about the interaction between Titan and Saturn's magnetosphere, the magnetic bubble around the planet.

The closest approach will take place at 8:04 a.m. PST (4:04 p.m. UTC) and bring Cassini within about 3,650 kilometers (2,270 miles) of Titan's surface.

As Titan makes a complete 360-degree orbit around Saturn, the relative influence of the sun's illumination and the hot ionized gas trapped in the magnetic bubble changes.

These factors are important for understanding the relationship between Titan and Saturn's magnetosphere.

It is important to make measurements at a variety of locations in the Saturn magnetosphere, so this flyby will occur in a part of the magnetosphere that has been poorly sampled so far.

Previous flybys have shown the magnetic environment near Titan to be rather variable and unpredictable. For 12 hours before and after closest approach, the Cassini plasma spectrometer instrument will be pointing in a direction to capture ionized gas in the region.

At the same time, Cassini's radio science subsystem will be gathering sensitive gravity data from Titan to improve understanding of the structure of the interior. Collecting data like these will eventually enable scientists to determine whether Titan has an ocean under its crust.

Other instruments will also be collecting data, much of it pertaining to seasonal change. Titan is currently in northern spring, approaching northern summer, and scientists want to know what has changed with the north polar winter vortex weather pattern.

The composite infrared spectrometer, for instance, will be mapping temperatures in Titan's stratosphere. The imaging science subsystem will also be monitoring the lakes, clouds and transport of aerosols in the Titan atmosphere.

This latest flyby is dubbed "T74," though planning changes early in the orbital tour have made this the 75th targeted flyby of Titan.

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Related Links
Titan T74 Flyby at JPL
Explore The Ring World of Saturn and her moons
Jupiter and its Moons
The million outer planets of a star called Sol
News Flash at Mercury






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SATURN DAILY
Surprise Hidden In Titan's Smog: Cirrus-Like Clouds
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Feb 04, 2011
Every day is a bad-air day on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Blanketed by haze far worse than any smog belched out in Los Angeles, Beijing or even Sherlock Holmes's London, the moon looks like a dirty orange ball. Described once as crude oil without the sulfur, the haze is made of tiny droplets of hydrocarbons with other, more noxious chemicals mixed in. Gunk. Icky as it may sound, Titan is ... read more


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