Cassini Successfully Completes Titan Flyby

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This view from Cassini's second close flyby of Titan on Dec. 13, 2004 shows bright material within the large dark region west of Xanadu. The area in this image is a region that has not previously been seen by Cassini at this high resolution. This false color image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera at a distance of approximately 125,900 kilometers from Titan, using a filter centered at 938 nanometers that emphasizes the moon's surface and clouds. The image scale is 735 meters per pixel.

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 14, 2004
The Cassini spacecraft completed a successful rendezvous with Saturn's moon Titan Monday. This was the last pass before the European Space Agency's Huygens probe is sprung loose from Cassini on Christmas Eve.

Information gathered during this flyby will provide an opportunity to compare images from Cassini's first close Titan encounter on Oct. 26.

NASA's Deep Space Network tracking station in Madrid, Spain, acquired a signal at about 4:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time). As anticipated, the spacecraft came within 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) of Titan's surface.

As with the last flyby, a major goal of this flyby is to measure the thickness of Titan's atmosphere. This information will help determine whether Cassini can safely get closer to Titan on subsequent flybys, and will also be used to verify that Huygens atmosphere models are correct.

Titan is a prime target of the Cassini-Huygens mission because it is the only moon in our solar system with a thick smoggy atmosphere. The Huygens probe, built and operated by the European Space Agency, is attached to Cassini. After its Christmas Eve release, it will descend through Titan's atmosphere on Jan. 14, 2005, as it collects atmospheric data down to the surface.

Tuesday morning, Cassini flew by Saturn's icy moon Dione at a distance of 72,500 kilometers (45,000 miles). Images and science results from both flybys will be presented at a news conference that will take place on Thursday, Dec. 16, at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco.

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From The Dark Side

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 12, 2004
As Cassini swung around to the dark side of the planet during its first close passage after orbit insertion, the intrepid spacecraft spied three ring moons whizzing around the planet.

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