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Friday 2 December 2016

Out In A Blaze Of Glory

Do you remember the Cassini probe?

The Cassini Probe Deliberately Crashed
Cassini Probe .....

Its been orbiting Saturn and its moons for 12 years, but is now running low on fuel. So now its fate is sealed .... crash landing into Saturn. This is to prevent it crashing into the moons as there is a suspicion that at least two of them, Enceladus and Titan, may actually harbour bacterial life.

Its actual demise is set for September next year, but in fact the end may come sooner than that as it repeatedly dives very close to - and even through - the rings over the next nine months, all of which could end in an abrupt termination of the mission should anything go wrong. So with orbits that could take it less than 2,000km above Saturn’s cloud tops, and allow sampling of some of the particles and gasses associated with the F ring, this could produce some amazing science and even more amazing pictures.

These may even top the earlier key discoveries of the mission which have included the fact that Enceladus has ice volcanoes which are spewing water into space from a sub-surface ocean. Or that Titan is a strange Earth-like world where lakes and seas are fed by rivers and rain, but in this case the liquid is made up of hydrocarbons such as methane.

Mancunuan -  Captain Dan Dare ... Sadly Pilot Of The Never Future
Dan Dare ... Sadly Pilot Of The Never Future ....

This blog will watch all this with fascination and dream of what might of been, if humanity had dreamt big after WWII and spent its money on the Dan Dare dream of man in space.

2 comments:

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Moderation is on for older posts to stop spamming and comments that are off topic or inappropriate from being posted .... comments are reviewed within 48 hours. I don't block normal comments that are on topic and not inappropriate. Vexatious comments that may cause upset to other commentators, or that are attempting to espouse a particular wider political view, are reviewed before acceptance. But a certain amount of debate around a post topic is accepted, as long as it remains generally on topic and is not an attempt to become sounding board for some other cause.

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