Latest Cassini–Huygens timeline Stories

By precisely tracking NASA's Cassini spacecraft on its low swoops over Saturn's moon Titan, scientists have determined the distribution of materials in the moon's interior. The subtle gravitational tugs they measured suggest the interior has been too cold and sluggish to split completely into separate layers of ice and rock.The finding, to be published in the March 12 issue of the journal Science, shows how Titan evolved in a different fashion from inner planets such as Earth, or icy moons...

Newly released images from last November's swoop over Saturn's icy moon Enceladus by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal a forest of new jets spraying from prominent fractures crossing the south polar region and yield the most detailed temperature map to date of one fracture.The new images from the imaging science subsystem and the composite infrared spectrometer teams also include the best 3-D image ever obtained of a "tiger stripe," a fissure that sprays icy particles, water vapor...

Like the battered white whale Moby Dick taunting Captain Ahab, Saturn's moon Prometheus surges toward the viewer in a 3-D image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.The image exposes the irregular shape and circular surface scars on Prometheus, pointing to a violent history. These craters are probably the remnants from impacts long ago.Prometheus is one of Saturn's innermost moons. It orbits the gas-giant at a distance of about 140,000 kilometers (86,000 miles) and is 86 kilometers (53 miles)...

On Feb. 13, 2010, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make its closest examination yet of Mimas, an eyeball-shaped moon of Saturn that has also been likened to the Death Star of "Star Wars." The spacecraft will be returning the highest-resolution images yet of this battered satellite.Mimas bears the mark of a violent, giant impact from the past - the 140-kilometer-wide (88-mile-wide) Herschel Crater - and scientists hope the encounter will help them explain why the moon was not blown to...

Astronomers say it is likely that Saturn's moon Enceladus hides a large body of liquid water just beneath its icy surface, BBC News reported.More data returned from the Cassini probe, which periodically sweeps past the little moon, has provided even more evidence backing the idea of a sub-surface sea below the moon's surface.Experts theorize that it is the detection of negatively charged water molecules in the atmosphere of Enceladus. Such ions on Earth are often seen where liquid water is in...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will extend the international Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn and its planets to 2017. The agency's fiscal year 2011 budget provides a $60 million per year extension for continued study of the ringed planet. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "This is a mission that never stops providing us surprising scientific results and showing us eye popping new vistas," said Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary...

NASA will extend the international Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn and its moons to 2017. The agency's fiscal year 2011 budget provides a $60 million per year extension for continued study of the ringed planet."This is a mission that never stops providing us surprising scientific results and showing us eye popping new vistas," said Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The historic traveler's stunning discoveries...

Exactly five years ago today the European Space Agency's (ESA) Huygens Probe made history when it landed on Titan, the largest moon in the Saturnian system. The touchdown on the surface of Titan marked the first, and so far only, landing of a man-made probe in the outer Solar System. Today many of the scientists and engineers that worked on the mission will celebrate this anniversary in the science museum Cosmocaixa in Barcelona, Spain. They will share their memories with the public and...

On January 14, 2005 the European Space Agency's Huygens probe separated from the Cassini spacecraft and landed on Saturn's moon Titan. The touchdown on the surface of Titan marked the first, and so far only, landing of a man-made probe in the outer Solar System. To mark the fifth anniversary of this remarkable event, scientists will gather from January 13-15 at the CosmoCaixa science museum in Barcelona, Spain, to review the key scientific and engineering achievements of Huygens, to evaluate...

Blobs of warm ice that periodically rise to the surface and churn the icy crust on Saturn's moon Enceladus explain the quirky heat behavior and intriguing surface of the moon's south polar region, according to a new paper using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft."Cassini appears to have caught Enceladus in the middle of a burp," said Francis Nimmo, a planetary scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz and a co-author of the new paper in Nature Geoscience. "These tumultuous periods...