OrbitalHub

NASA dixit:

“October 1, 2011. Saturn’s moon Enceladus is partially eclipsed by the planet in this Cassini spacecraft view which also features the moon Titan in the distance. Cassini flew by Enceladus, shown in the center of the view, at a distance of about 16,000 miles (26,000 kilometers). The terminator between the day and night sides of Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across) can be seen on the far left of the moon, while the shadow of the eclipsing planet runs across the bottom.

Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across) is in the bottom right of this image and is about 684,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from the spacecraft. This view looks toward the Saturn-facing sides of Enceladus and Titan. North is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on. The view was obtained at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 29 degrees. Scale in the original image was 2 miles (3 kilometers) per pixel on Enceladus. The image was contrast enhanced and magnified by a factor of 1.5 to enhance the visibility of surface features.”

“After almost 20 years in space, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft begins the final chapter of its remarkable story of exploration: its Grand Finale. Between April and September 2017, Cassini will undertake a daring set of orbits that is, in many ways, like a whole new mission. Following a final close flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan, Cassini will leap over the planet’s icy rings and begin a series of 22 weekly dives between the planet and the rings.

No other mission has ever explored this unique region. What we learn from these final orbits will help to improve our understanding of how giant planets – and planetary systems everywhere – form and evolve.

On the final orbit, Cassini will plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending back new and unique science to the very end. After losing contact with Earth, the spacecraft will burn up like a meteor, becoming part of the planet itself.

Cassini’s Grand Finale is about so much more than the spacecraft’s final dive into Saturn. That dramatic event is the capstone of six months of daring exploration and scientific discovery. And those six months are the thrilling final chapter in a historic 20-year journey.”

Image credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“Cassini gazed toward high southern latitudes near Saturn’s south pole to observe ghostly curtains of dancing light — Saturn’s southern auroras, or southern lights. These natural light displays at the planet’s poles are created by charged particles raining down into the upper atmosphere, making gases there glow.

The dark area at the top of this scene is Saturn’s night side. The auroras rotate from left to right, curving around the planet as Saturn rotates over about 70 minutes, compressed here into a movie sequence of about five seconds. Background stars are seen sliding behind the planet. Cassini was moving around Saturn during the observation, keeping its gaze fixed on a particular spot on the planet, which causes a shift in the distant background over the course of the observation. Some of the stars seem to make a slight turn to the right just before disappearing. This effect is due to refraction — the starlight gets bent as it passes through the atmosphere, which acts as a lens. Random bright specks and streaks appearing from frame to frame are due to charged particles and cosmic rays hitting the camera detector.”

Video credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“June 18, 2011. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft obtained this unprocessed image of Saturn’s moon Helene.”

“After almost 20 years in space, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft begins the final chapter of its remarkable story of exploration: its Grand Finale. Between April and September 2017, Cassini will undertake a daring set of orbits that is, in many ways, like a whole new mission. Following a final close flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan, Cassini will leap over the planet’s icy rings and begin a series of 22 weekly dives between the planet and the rings.

No other mission has ever explored this unique region. What we learn from these final orbits will help to improve our understanding of how giant planets – and planetary systems everywhere – form and evolve.

On the final orbit, Cassini will plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending back new and unique science to the very end. After losing contact with Earth, the spacecraft will burn up like a meteor, becoming part of the planet itself.

Cassini’s Grand Finale is about so much more than the spacecraft’s final dive into Saturn. That dramatic event is the capstone of six months of daring exploration and scientific discovery. And those six months are the thrilling final chapter in a historic 20-year journey.”

Image credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“January 11, 2011. Saturn’s northern storm marches through the planet’s atmosphere in the top right of this false-color mosaic from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Saturn’s atmosphere and its rings are shown here in a false-color composite made from 12 images taken in near-infrared light through filters that are sensitive to varying degrees of methane absorption. Red and orange colors in this view indicate clouds that are deep in the atmosphere. Yellow and green colors, most noticeable along the top edge of the view, indicate intermediate clouds. White and blue indicate high clouds and haze. The rings appear as a thin horizontal line of bright blue because they are outside of the atmosphere and not affected by methane absorption.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ring plane. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light. The images filtered at 890 nanometers are projected as blue. The images filtered at 728 nanometers are projected as green, and images filtered at 752 nanometers are projected as red.

The images were taken over about 50 minutes, at a distance of approximately 569,000 miles (915,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 45 degrees. The images were re-projected to the same viewing geometry, so that scale in this final mosaic is 63 miles (102 kilometers) per pixel.”

“After almost 20 years in space, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft begins the final chapter of its remarkable story of exploration: its Grand Finale. Between April and September 2017, Cassini will undertake a daring set of orbits that is, in many ways, like a whole new mission. Following a final close flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan, Cassini will leap over the planet’s icy rings and begin a series of 22 weekly dives between the planet and the rings.

No other mission has ever explored this unique region. What we learn from these final orbits will help to improve our understanding of how giant planets – and planetary systems everywhere – form and evolve.

On the final orbit, Cassini will plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending back new and unique science to the very end. After losing contact with Earth, the spacecraft will burn up like a meteor, becoming part of the planet itself.

Cassini’s Grand Finale is about so much more than the spacecraft’s final dive into Saturn. That dramatic event is the capstone of six months of daring exploration and scientific discovery. And those six months are the thrilling final chapter in a historic 20-year journey.”

Image credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“November 30, 2010. This Cassini narrow-angle camera image — one of those acquired in the survey conducted by the Cassini imaging science team of the geyser basin at the south pole of Enceladus — was taken as Cassini was looking across the moon’s south pole. At the time, the spacecraft was essentially in the moon’s equatorial plane. The image scale is 1280 feet (390 meters) per pixel and the sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle is 162.5 degrees. The image was taken through the clear filter of the narrow angle camera, 1.4 years after southern autumnal equinox. The shadow of the body of Enceladus on the lower portions of the jets is clearly seen.

Post-equinox images like this, clearly showing the different projected locations of the intersection between the shadow and the curtain of jets from each fracture, were useful for scientists in checking the triangulated positions of the geysers.”

“After almost 20 years in space, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft begins the final chapter of its remarkable story of exploration: its Grand Finale. Between April and September 2017, Cassini will undertake a daring set of orbits that is, in many ways, like a whole new mission. Following a final close flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan, Cassini will leap over the planet’s icy rings and begin a series of 22 weekly dives between the planet and the rings.

No other mission has ever explored this unique region. What we learn from these final orbits will help to improve our understanding of how giant planets – and planetary systems everywhere – form and evolve.

On the final orbit, Cassini will plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending back new and unique science to the very end. After losing contact with Earth, the spacecraft will burn up like a meteor, becoming part of the planet itself.

Cassini’s Grand Finale is about so much more than the spacecraft’s final dive into Saturn. That dramatic event is the capstone of six months of daring exploration and scientific discovery. And those six months are the thrilling final chapter in a historic 20-year journey.”

Image credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“November 28, 2010. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft obtained this raw image of the Saturnian moon Hyperion when the spacecraft was about 73,000 kilometers (45,000 miles) away from the moon’s surface.”

“After almost 20 years in space, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft begins the final chapter of its remarkable story of exploration: its Grand Finale. Between April and September 2017, Cassini will undertake a daring set of orbits that is, in many ways, like a whole new mission. Following a final close flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan, Cassini will leap over the planet’s icy rings and begin a series of 22 weekly dives between the planet and the rings.

No other mission has ever explored this unique region. What we learn from these final orbits will help to improve our understanding of how giant planets – and planetary systems everywhere – form and evolve.

On the final orbit, Cassini will plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending back new and unique science to the very end. After losing contact with Earth, the spacecraft will burn up like a meteor, becoming part of the planet itself.

Cassini’s Grand Finale is about so much more than the spacecraft’s final dive into Saturn. That dramatic event is the capstone of six months of daring exploration and scientific discovery. And those six months are the thrilling final chapter in a historic 20-year journey.”

Image credit: NASA