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Spacecraft to Fly Through Geyser Plumes On Saturn Moon
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Mar 12, 2008 03:24 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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Cassini 'Tastes' Organic Material at Enceladus 4 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.
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!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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 tra
Pictures available later (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pictures available later (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Do they have windshield wipers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Weight restrictions and tradeoffs (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Where's Google...? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
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)
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)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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
*Tops* of the Plumes!? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)