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Spacecraft to Fly Through Geyser Plumes On Saturn Moon
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Mar 12, 2008 02:24 PM
from the fueling-station-coming-soon dept.
from the fueling-station-coming-soon dept.
Riding with Robots writes "Today the robotic Saturn probe Cassini will make its closest buzz ever over the surface of the enigmatic ice moon Enceladus, whose surprising giant water geysers hint at a hidden ocean of liquid water. The spacecraft will fly right through the tops of the geyser plumes in order to sample the material that originated beneath the surface. NASA is offering a video, interactive guide and image gallery in advance of the event."
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Enceladus "Sea" Mystery Deepens 166 comments
Smivs writes "The BBC reports that an ocean may not be the source of the jets emanating from Saturn's moon Enceladus. Controversial research questions the moon's promise as a target in the search for life beyond Earth. A chemical analysis of Enceladus, led by University of Colorado planetary scientist Nick Schneider, failed to detect sodium, an element scientists say should be present in any body of water that has been in contact with rock for billions of years. Spectral analysis with the Keck Telescope found no sodium in the plumes or in the vapor in orbit around the moon. At stake is whether Saturn's moon could support alien life and is thus a worthy target for a NASA exploratory mission to detect it. Such a mission to Enceladus is one of four currently under review for further development."
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Saturn's A-ring Soaks Up Debris Ejected from Nearby Moon 64 comments
ScienceDaily is running a story about the recently discovered interaction between Saturn's A-ring and one of Saturn's small moons, Enceladus. Thanks to data from Cassini, scientists have discovered that ejected matter from Enceladus' ice geysers is absorbed into the A-ring, where it is then trapped. We discussed the geysers themselves a few years ago, and researchers have been working since then to determine where the material was going. Quoting:
"This is the latest surprising phenomenon associated with the ice geysers of Enceladus to be discovered or confirmed by Cassini scientists. Earlier, the geysers were found to be responsible for the content of the E-ring. Next, the whole magnetic environment of Saturn was found to be weighed down by the material spewing from Enceladus, which becomes plasma -- a gas of electrically charged particles. Now, Cassini scientists confirm that the plasma, which creates a donut-shaped cloud around Saturn, is being snatched by Saturn's A-ring, which acts like a giant sponge where the plasma is absorbed."
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Rings Discovered Around a Moon for the First Time 144 comments
Riding with Robots writes "It turns out that one of the Ringed Planet's moons has rings of its own. The robotic spacecraft Cassini at Saturn has discovered that the icy moon Rhea is orbited by an extensive debris field and at least one ring, the first such system found. 'Many years ago we thought Saturn was the only planet with rings,' said one mission scientist. 'Now we may have a moon of Saturn that is a miniature version of its even more elaborately decorated parent.'"
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Cassini Geyser-Tasting a Bust 95 comments
Maggie McKee writes "The Cassini spacecraft flew into the icy geysers erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wednesday in an attempt to figure out what they were made of, but a glitch prevented the probe from actually 'tasting' the plumes. An 'unexplained software hiccup' put the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) out of commission. Ironically, new software designed to improve the ability of the CDA to count particle hits may be to blame. Mission managers may try to re-attempt the plume fly-through later this year."
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Hardware: Cassini 'Tastes' Organic Material at Enceladus 70 comments
Riding with Robots writes "As previously reported, the robotic spacecraft Cassini recently flew through the mysterious geyser plumes at Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. Today, NASA released the preliminary results of the flyby, including some intriguing findings, such as organic materials 20 times denser than expected and relatively high temperatures along the fissures where the geysers emanate. 'These spectacular new data will really help us understand what powers the geysers. The surprisingly high temperatures make it more likely that there's liquid water not far below the surface,' said one mission scientist."
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It really has the sensors for this? (Score:2, Interesting)
NASA really wants the probe to get a wash down.
Re:It really has the sensors for this? (Score:5, Informative)
The probe was going to be flying around the rings of Saturn, so they added the Cosmic Dust Analyzer, which can analyze dust particles. For the type of thing they are doing here, they can treat water as a dust particle as it will freeze. It is particulate matter.
Parent
Re:It really has the sensors for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
And furthermore, Cassini will fly a mere 32 miles over the surface of Enceladeus. Considering the detail visible from 2600+ miles away [nasa.gov] on a pass several years ago, there should be a couple really great images result from this pass.
It's rather amazing to think that NASA can successfully fly this spacecraft within 32 miles of an object 300 miles in diameter, while moving at 32,000 mph in an elliptical orbit that carries it over 1 million miles away from Saturn at the extreme, with very limited manuevering fuel. Go Cassini!
Parent
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Cassini's cameras can't focus on the surface moving by so quickly. Should result in some spectacular approach and departure sequences though.
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This...is...Star Trek! ;-)
Actually, you can do quite a lot with computer-controlled devices that the original manufacturer did not intend originally. Galileo, for one thing, was capable of transmitting a huge amount of data even though it was crippled so much that anyone except the JPL people would probably give up [wikipedia.org]. I bow to those guys. Perhaps they are going to use this [nasa.gov]?
Pictures available later (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pictures available later (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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Amazing picture!!!!! (Score:2)
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Anyone who replies calling me an idiot for not recognizing a frost-covered window pane should be sacked.
Yes, it's cold in Dryden.
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>the first pictures probably won't be publicly available until tomorrow.
At closest approach (50 km.) Cassini will be going far too fast to take any photographs.
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Here's an animation of the flyby, you can see the spacecraft's close trajectory and how various instruments in their turn take measurements of Enceladus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pfz1n6tMUg [youtube.com]
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My commute to work is farther! (Score:1)
Been there, done that (Score:5, Funny)
Tasted kind of sweet with a hint of mint.
NASA needs to get with the times. They've got 30 years of catching up to do.
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Water of Enchaladas....mmmmmm....lets bottle it!
Do they have windshield wipers? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Weight restrictions and tradeoffs (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Where's Google...? (Score:2)
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Hats off to the JPL nerds who made this work. I am floored.
Re:Where's Google...? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not so much that orbital mechanics is hard; a lot of it is just brute-force computation. The hard part is getting reliable data to base said computation on.
Parent
Re:Where's Google...? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's hard -- and really as much an art as a science -- is taking the laws of orbital mechanics, the very restricted maneuvering-fuel budget, and several thousand science goals (often mutually excusive), and turning them into an efficient mission plan.
Then add to that dealing with the unexpected. The Cassini team had a whole orbital tour worked out before launch, then discovered while the probe was already en route to Saturn that they needed to completely change the orbital geometry for the Huygens probe's Titan descent to compensate for a radio design snafu. They succeeded in not only rejiggering nearly all the planned science to fit into a new orbital tour, but also in grabbing a few resulting new opportunities for observations along the changed route.
The best analogy I can think of is to the difference between generating a set of legal chess moves, and a set of good chess moves.
Parent
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A lot of trajectory planning seems to be an art, from where I stand on the sidelines (albeit with a dece
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It's not so much "trouble", but rather using up more course adjustment fuel to compensate for errors in reality versus the model. After every moon pass-by they can use the cameras to check the pro
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The less fuel you have, the shorter the mission and/or less chances to change your mind.
Yep, reaction mass (Cassini doesn't have fuel per se) is one of the most common limiting factors in missions. (Although it should be noted, not the only one.) As the mission wears on, we're having to scale back the kinds of things we want to do with the spacecraft because the reaction mass is getting too precious.
One minor quibble, you don't just do navigation images after a fly-by. They're being taken all the time to monitor the spacecraft's trajectory.
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That's an amazing story in itself. The dude who discovered the problem did it on a hunch, barely got funding to check into the issue, and was almost ignored when he uncovered the problem. It would make a great "nerd drama" movie.
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yay for space diseases! (Score:3, Funny)
Now, that would be something.
good ol days (Score:2, Funny)
Oblig... (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Arthur C Clarke reference (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, since there's hydrocarbons on Titan and ice in the rings and moons of Saturn, I think Clarke picked the wrong gas giant to send his characters to! Saturn's got it going on.
Re:Arthur C Clarke reference (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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Only the movie (and subsequent books) mentions Jupiter. It makes sense, as more people watched the movie than read the book. In the book, they use Jupiter to accelerate Discovery towards Saturn, but Kubrick (IIRC) thought this would confuse the audience (like the Bowman meeting with the monolith in the hotel room after the psychedelic trip would be readily understood) and Saturn was dropped. Douglas Trumbull used the techniques developed during
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Probably not a coincidence that Clarke also wrote some books with Gentry Lee [wikipedia.org], one of the chef engineers at JPL, so he certainly had good sources for this stuff (though 2061 was written a few years before Clarke first p
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I don't think that the 90 km-deep ocean on Europa is anything to sneeze at. Unfortunately, it's under a few km of ice.
*Tops* of the Plumes!? (Score:5, Informative)
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The video on the JPL site explains that at the altitude at which they're passing through the plume, the only particles are micron-sized and don't threaten the craft at all. Larger particles can't get up that high.
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ALL THESE WORLDS..... (Score:2, Funny)
I know it's not Jupiter
But is it flown by Commander Jameson? (Score:2)
Damn, I keep mixing them up. I thought Enceladus was the one that was "very noted for its exciting sit coms but ravaged by vicious mountain goats".
first pictures are down (Score:2)
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