New year wish from Cassini-Huygens team . They offer their views on Saturn and spacecraft Cassini.
You can find the spacecraft Cassini at the top right side of the image .
Showing posts with label Cassini. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cassini. Show all posts
Ammonia on Saturn's moon
If there is an underground ocean on Enceladus, then ammonia would be vital to it. Ammonia acts as an antifreeze, allowing water to remain liquid at temperatures as low as –97 degrees Celsius . This is the first time that scientists have found ammonia on an icy satellite of a giant planet.
Possible salty ocean hidden in depths of Saturn moon
Following a flyby of Saturn’s enigmatic moon in 2005 that revealed jets shooting out of the moon’s so-called tiger stripes at the south pole, scientists have speculated about the presence of a water reservoir hidden at depth within the moon’s interior . The jets contain water vapour, gas and tiny grains of ice and dust, and shoot hundreds of kilometres into space.
New images of Saturn by Cassini
The Cassini imaging team have released a set of never-before-seen images and movies of the Saturn system to coincide with the opening of a week-long celebration of the mission at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since 1 July 2004 and is now in its Equinox mission phase that will see the giant planet experience equinox this August, the twice-yearly occasion when the Sun passes through the plane containing the planet's rings. For Saturn this occurs once every 15 Earth years.
Saturn's approach to equinox reveals new detail in rings
Towering vertical structures in Saturn’s rings have been discerned for the first time by Cassini as the giant planet approaches equinox.
Equinox defines the exact moment when the Sun is seen directly overhead at noon at a planet’s equator, and occurs twice a year. For Saturn the wait is long, occurring every 15 Earth years. The wait has been well worth it though, for Cassini has detected the long shadows cast across the expanse of rings by never-before-seen structures as the giant planet approaches equinox this August. The observations also confirm that small moons in narrow ring gaps can have significant and complex effects on the edges of their gaps.
Cassini finds Titan's clouds hang on to summer
Cloud chasers studying Saturn's moon Titan say its clouds form and move much like those on Earth, but in a much slower, more lingering fashion.
Their forecast for Titan's early autumn -- warm and wetter.
Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have monitored Titan's atmosphere for three-and-a-half years, between July 2004 and December 2007, and observed more than 200 clouds. They found that the way these clouds are distributed around Titan matches scientists' global circulation models. The only exception is timing -- clouds are still noticeable in the southern hemisphere while fall is approaching.
As summer changes to fall at the equinox in August 2009, Titan's clouds are expected to disappear altogether. But, circulation models of Titan's weather and climate predict that clouds at the southern latitudes don't wait for the equinox and should have already faded out since 2005. However, Cassini was still able to see clouds at these places late in 2007, and some of them are particularly active at mid-latitudes and the equator.
Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere, and its climate shares Earth-like characteristics. Titan's dense, nitrogen-methane atmosphere responds much more slowly than Earth's atmosphere, as it receives about 100 times less sunlight because it is 10 times farther from the sun. Seasons on Titan last more than seven Earth years.
Scientists will continue to observe the long-term changes during Cassini's extended mission, which runs until the fall of 2010. Cassini is set to fly by Titan on June 6.
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