1st spacecraft to orbit Saturn
6 new moon discoveries
20 years of dedicated teamwork
27 nations together
274 completed orbits
635 GB science data collected
4.9 billion miles traveled!
On the mission to interpret the beautiful complexities of Saturn’s spectacular rings and moons, Cassini, carrying the Huygens Probe, was vital to our expedition of upper planetary atmospheres. Understanding the possibilities of life, to processes that have shaped our solar system, Cassini has been one of the most brilliant missions accomplished by far. By prompting scientists to re-evaluate the theories of the universe, we can finally understand in detail the weather and seasonal changes that occur on other planets. The final phase of this mission brought unparalleled observations of the planet and its rings by completing a set of 22 orbits, with the final one being called, The Grand Finale.
Cassini’s astounding journey managed by NASA’S jet propulsion laboratory in Southern California came to an end in September 2017 after The Grand Finale. However, it was before its plunge to death that it collected a temperature map of Saturn’s atmosphere alongside observing the patterns of changes in starlight. Earth, being much closer to the Sun unlike many other gas giants in our solar system, has a plausible reason to why it accounts for high temperatures. With Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, that’s certainly not the case. With dense atmospheres and an understanding of Saturn’s upper layers, new analysis of data obtained by Cassini provides us a much clearer interpretation of what is occurring.
By reconstructing a heat circulation map, NASA has shown that through auroral electric currents peaking with a global wind system contributes to such high temperatures. The hexagon, captured by Cassini; Saturn’s northern pole having a classic vortex structure exhibiting such perfect geometrical shape with its cloud system composed of jet streams of various gases, x50 times larger than an average Earth hurricane, is one of the biggest mysteries that remains unsolved. As for now, we can only say that the hexagon is due to currents of air under unstable and turbulent conditions.
Cassini witnessed two storms merging into a larger monster storm on this ringed planet, while its probe detached on a remarkable, successful three-week journey to Saturn’s moon: Titan. Clumpy, smooth and streaky rings with even more varied textures and patterns and like never before, revealed previously unknown faint rings. In addition, sodium salts in ice grains of Saturn’s outermost ring showed that jets coming off from Saturn’s moon: Enceladus could be holding a reservoir of water by taking into account the significant amount of salts and minerals detected. The presence of ammonia during its flybys of Enceladus also justifies evidence of water.
As sunlight pinpointed Saturn’s rings during equinox, it gave the illusion of disappearing rings. Scientists took advantage of this through low-angle lighting to measure height and breadth of Saturn’s rings. Cassini detected an exosphere composed of Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide around another one of its moons: Dione.
With so much data Cassini has to offer, space exploration provides us with an incentive, a vision, and a goal for the scientists of tomorrow.
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