Cassini Spacecraft

This raw image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft was taken on March 27, 2012.  Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute These raw, unprocessed images of Saturn's moons Enceladus, Janus and Dione were taken on March 27 and 28, 2012, by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.Cassini passed Enceladus first on March 27, coming within about 46 miles (74 kilometers) of the moon's surface. The encounter was primarily designed for Cassini's ion and neutral mass spectrometer, which "tasted" the composition of...Read Full Story

Less than three weeks after its last visit to the Saturnian moon Enceladus, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft returns for an encore. At its closest approach on April 14, the spacecraft was just as low over the moon’s south polar region as it was on March 27 -- 46 miles, or 74 kilometers. NASA's Cassini spacecraft made a close approach to the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus on April 14, 2012.  Jets of the south polar region of Enceladus. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Like the last...Read Full Story

New movies of Jupiter are the first to catch an invisible wave shaking up one of the giant planet's jet streams, an interaction that also takes place in Earth's atmosphere and influences the weather. The movies, made from images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft when it flew by Jupiter in 2000, are part of an in-depth study conducted by a team of scientists and amateur astronomers led by Amy Simon-Miller at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and published in the April 2012...Read Full Story

Raw, unprocessed images from the successful Oct. 19 flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus by NASA's Cassini spacecraft provide new views of the moon and the icy jets that burst from its southern polar region.  Enceladus Flyby E-15 (Raw Image #1) Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute The Cassini spacecraft takes a close view of some of the southern terrain of Saturn's moon Enceladus, where newly created terrain is on display.See New to Old on Enceladus for a mosaic of this...Read Full Story

The things that happen in space far from us and within our own solar system never cease to amaze me. We don’t have the luxury of sending probes to other galaxies and solar systems to search directly for signs of life or the building blocks of life. However, within our own solar system, we can and do, send out probes to satisfy curiosity and scientific interest. A couple years ago, the Cassini spacecraft flew by one of Saturn’s icy moons called Dione.During the flyby, the Cassini spacecraft...Read Full Story

A crescent Enceladus appears with Saturn’s rings in this Cassini spacecraft view of the Moon. The famed jets of water ice emanating from the south polar region of the 504 km-diameter moon are faintly visible. They appear as a small white blur below the dark pole, down and to the right of the illuminated part of the moon’s surface. The image’s contrast was enhanced to increase their visibility. The sunlit terrain seen here is on the trailing hemisphere of Enceladus; north is up. This view...Read Full Story

Washington, Apr 25: New images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show rogue kilometre-sized objects punching through Saturn's F-ring and leaving glittering trails - dubbed 'mini-jets' - behind them. - Indiatalkies.comRead Full Story

Global and high resolution mapping of Enceladus confirms that the weather forecast for Saturn's unique icy moon is set for ongoing snow flurries. The superfine ice crystals that coat Enceladus's surface would make perfect powder for skiing, according to Dr Paul Schenk of the Lunar and Planetary Institute (Houston, Texas), who will present the results at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011 in Nantes, France on Monday 3rd October.  Global signature of frost deposition on Enceladus revealed in...Read Full Story

The moon Enceladus, one of the jewels of the Saturn system, sparkles peculiarly bright in new images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The images of the moon, the first ever taken of Enceladus with Cassini's synthetic aperture radar, reveal new details of some of the grooves in the moon's south polar region and unexpected textures in the ice. These images, obtained on Nov. 6, 2011, are the highest-resolution images of this region obtained so far. NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained new...Read Full Story

This artist's concept shows a glowing patch of ultraviolet light near Saturn's north pole that occurs at the "footprint" of the magnetic connection between Saturn and its moon Enceladus. The footprint and magnetic field lines are not visible to the naked eye, but were detected by the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph and the fields and particles instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The footprint, newly discovered by Cassini, marks the presence of an electrical circuit that connects Saturn...Read Full Story