By Millie Love
For 400 years scientists and astronomers have gazed through telescopes at the planet Saturn in awe, forever wondering what secrets it might hold. Saturn, one of the most fascinating planets in our solar system, has even more to it than meets the eye. It is iconic for its unusual rings and 62 moons and for being 9 times the size of Earth. Now though, we know more about Saturn than even before, thanks to NASA and the European Space Agency, who have completed the first ever mission to explore the unique planet, Project Cassini.
Mission Cassini was named after the great astronomer, Giovanni Cassini, who was the first person to note the different rings on Saturn in the 18th century. From the conception, to launching the spacecraft, Cassini took 7 years of hard work. Cassini consisted of 6 tonnes of special measuring equipment and cameras to carry out sophisticated scientific studies of Saturn.
On October the 15th, 1997, the Cassini spacecraft was launched into space to start its long 7 year journey to Saturn. Saturn is a billion miles away from Earth, which means, without some help along the way, Cassini would never reach Saturn. With the spacecraft’s modern technology, it can use gravity assist. This means joining the orbit of nearby planets and slingshotting itself faster than ever to gain speed on the way.
After Cassini’s long journey to Saturn, it spent 13 years orbiting it. Its main goal was to photograph Saturn and its astonishing rings. However, Cassini flew by Titan, one of Saturn’s biggest moons and one of the most Earth-like bodies we have found. After close examination by scientists, they decided to land a probe on Titan's surface, Huygens. After taking some astounding photos, they did another flyby in Cassini. Here they found sand dunes that were not made of sand at all, but a stickier, more solid material. They also found lakes of methane, which carry the potential of holding life in the near future.
Cassini, in its orbit, found lots of other smaller moons: including the Death Star Moon (Mimas) and Enceladus. Enceladus is one of Saturn’s smallest moons, but one of the most interesting. After the flybys, Enceladus was seen to have a warm atmosphere with water. NASA then decided to take a closer look. By this, they found hot water vapour spewing out of the moon's eruptions.
Finally after 13 long years of orbiting Saturn, 7 years getting there and 7 years building, Cassini was running out of battery. If the battery died, Cassini would plunge into Saturn’s surface, however, Cassini needed to go out with a bang in great celebration of its journey. NASA decided to use Cassini’s last battery power to go up and down the rings, taking the closest ever pictures of Saturn, before slowly burning into its atmosphere. On September 15th, 2017, Cassini’s mission came to an end; however, there are many more discoveries to be made with all the data the project gathered.
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