Do you remember the 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.
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
Fascinating. Go Science!
ReplyDeleteSo much more if we had really tried for space.
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