Cassini closing in on Saturn. Wow look at those Rings!

I've been following cassini now for a few years and it is just about to start the primary mission and slated for finale insertion to Saturn in just a few weeks. This should be one of the most exciting exploration missions to date.

News and Information Links
Space.com News
www.spacedaily.com...

Nasa
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov...

Image Team (Awesome New Ring Pictures)
ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu...
Instrument Link Site
lasp.colorado.edu...

IRC ATS Thread
www.abovetopsecret.com...
They were being stingy with images up till now. Seems this week they began a daily image instead of weekly update =).

I'm pumped =).







[edit on 1-7-2004 by Xeven]

Awesome!
Thanks for the heads up and links!


I am much more interested in the moons than the planet myself. I hope they take a lot of time to get some great pictures.

[Edited on 26-5-2004 by Darkblade71]

Anyone know why they trickle our the pictures? This new one is almost a month ago... I read on there some were that they had over 6k images. I cannot find them anywere. Why do they hold them back and is it legal to do so given that the tax payers paid for the mission?


saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.../multimedia/images/saturn/images/PIA05398.jpg&type=image

New pictures up! Titan and Phoebe. Cassini set to image Phoebe in comming days. 10th, 11th are the closest flyby's off the mysteriously dark moon phoebe.

Stay tuned!

Seems like you could keep a lot of heat under that cloud cover on Titan no?

saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.../multimedia/images/large-moons/images/PIA05404.jpg&type=image

[edit on 10-6-2004 by Xeven]

[edit on 10-6-2004 by Xeven]

Phoebe will be photographed closely tomorrow. It's a weird moon because it orbits in a direction counter to all the other Saturnine moons and, based on its composition, may be a captured comet:
www.newscientist.com...

This actually reminds me of the book version of Arthur C Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (in it the Discovery flies to Saturn to check out an anomaly).

[edit on 10-6-2004 by onlyinmydreams]

What I find the most interesting is that that on dec 24th, another probe will go to Titan and crash land on it sending as much info as it can before it crashes. Titan also has a moon and they think it was a planet that just got sucked up by Saturns gravitational pull. lol they found niburu.

Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory may get some clues to a mystery Friday when NASA's Cassini space probe comes within 1,250 miles of Phoebe, one of Saturn's most mysterious moons.

Phoebe has boggled astronomers for over 100 years because of its dark surface and retrograde orbit, which sends it spinning around Saturn in the opposite direction from the planet's 30 other known moons. Many scientists now believe the 137-mile-wide moon may be a captured asteroid that has remained unchanged since it was first formed in the outer solar system. If Friday's flyby proves that theory to be true, data gathered from Cassini's instruments could shed new light on how planets are formed.

www.wired.com...

The Cassini spacecraft has made a close pass of the planet's mysterious moon Phoebe.

The US-European spacecraft made its closest approach to the moon on Friday at 2156 BST at a distance of 2,000km.

As the probe flies past, it will gather data that will tell scientists about Phoebe's internal structure, its composition and its history.

Phoebe is 220km across and Cassini's images of it will be far superior to those taken by Voyager 2 in 1981.

By determining the mass and volume of the moon, the scientists can also determine its density. This will tell them whether the moon is solid all the way through or is essentially a mass of rubble.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Some of the photos are in from the Phobe fly-by. A small sample is up in the JPL site with more expected to be released soon.

First images from the Cassini flyby of Phoebe reveal it to be a scarred, cratered outpost with a very old surface and a mysterious past, and a great deal of variation in surface brightness across its surface.


Early images returned from the first detailed reconnaissance of Saturn's small outer moon, Phoebe, show breathtaking details in the moon's pockmarked surface that already have imaging scientists puzzling over the body's history. The images are only a preview of what to expect from the high resolution images to be examined later today which will show details about 10 times smaller.

Cassini-Huygens Site

Holding breath as Cassini is comming its closest to the Rings!

Orbit Insertion Timeline


Very Nice Saturn reporting at Space Daily
www.saturndaily.com...

[edit on 29-6-2004 by Xeven]

Wow these are beautiful. The pictures from saturn so far just make ya feel like we are living in a Universe inside a computer. Saturn is like a work of art. Awe inspiring.




More images at Ciclops
ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu...