Artist's Illustration of Cassini Spacecraft Plunging into Saturn's Atmosphere and Burning: NASA/ESA
Cassini-Huygens was launched in 1997 to study the Saturn, its ring
system and moons.
The spacecraft travelled nearly two billion miles in space for 7 years at an average speed
of 16km/s and finally entered orbit around Saturn on 1st July'2004. Huygens lander seperated from Cassini and landed on the moon Titan, making it the only spacecraft sent by humans that landed in the outer solar system.
The spacecraft travelled nearly two billion miles in space for 7 years at an average speed
of 16km/s and finally entered orbit around Saturn on 1st July'2004. Huygens lander seperated from Cassini and landed on the moon Titan, making it the only spacecraft sent by humans that landed in the outer solar system.
During its 13 year mission from 2004 to 2017, Cassini orbited Saturn
294 times during which it flew very close to many moons 162 times revealing the
astounding world of Saturn and family of its icy-moons. It has showed us the
fascinating world of Titan where methane rivers run into methane seas and
dramatic moon Enceladus where plumes of water vapor jets with organic molecules
blast into space from underground oceans where life might
exist and magnificent rings of saturn which are made of ice-particles that rain down onto saturn itself from its rings. Cassini discovered that these rings are very young. Cassini helped us understand the solar system better, our place in the universe and other worlds where life might exist.
exist and magnificent rings of saturn which are made of ice-particles that rain down onto saturn itself from its rings. Cassini discovered that these rings are very young. Cassini helped us understand the solar system better, our place in the universe and other worlds where life might exist.
13
years into the mission, Cassini was nearly out of fuel in 2017. NASA had no
other choice but to crash the spacecraft into Saturn's atmosphere to prevent
contaminating the habitable moons (Titan, Enceladus etc.) with earth microbes.
Cassini discovered earlier that life might be present on these moons. Special interest was the 300 mile
wide moon Enceladus which has many necessary conditions to sustain life.
International laws on space exploration require that space missions must not contaminate the worlds
that might be habitable or contain life like Titan or Enceladus where ocean
worlds are present. NASA
has designed the crash event very dramatically which they called "Grand Finale". The spacecraft flew between the atmosphere of Saturn and its rings where no
spacecraft has gone before. It made an amazing discovery
during this. That's for another post...
Sreekanth Panjala
Science Popularizer | Author
YouTube : SreeInspires
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