Saturn’s north pole is an incredibly active place, data from NASA’s Cassini mission and the Hubble Space Telescope have shown, with its massive hexagonal weather system and powerful auroras. Now, a new study, published Sept. 3 in Nature Communications, has shown that not only is there the …
Read More‘Towering hexagon’ and auroras: Saturn’s north polar wonders
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and ESA’s Huygens lander showed that Saturn’s large moon Titan mimics Earth in many ways. But Titan displays different kinds of chemistry in a far colder environment. Given the similarities, the question of life inevitably arises: could Titan support some kind of simple …
Saturn’s moon Enceladus might be tiny, but it has the potential to help answer one of the biggest questions ever – are we alone? NASA’s Cassini mission studied this enigmatic world up close and found that it is incredibly active, at least geologically, with huge …
It has been just over a month now since the Cassini spacecraft took its final plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, ending an incredible mission of 13 years at the ringed giant planet. The probe continued collecting scientific data until the very last moments, and now engineers …
The moment that many people have been waiting for – albeit with great sadness – has finally arrived, with the Cassini spacecraft ending its mission in a literal blaze of glory. At 4:55 AM PT on Sept. 15, the long-lived explorer plummeted into Saturn’s atmosphere …
Read More‘All good things’: Cassini finishes its epic mission at Saturn in a blaze of glory
The end is nigh. Those really are not the words that scientists and fans of the Cassini mission at Saturn want to hear, but it’s true. After exploring Saturn and its moons since 2004, the Cassini spacecraft has now entered its final orbit around the …
Read More‘The last hurrah’: Cassini prepares for fiery end of mission in one week
This is actually from 2009, but was just posted again on Facebook and is a stunning view across Saturn’s rings as seen by the Cassini spacecraft. The level of detail is incredible as the rings are illuminated edge-on during that year’s equinox. Cassini is getting …