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LOS ANGELES - The international Cassini spacecraft went into safe mode this week after successfully passing over a Saturn moon that was the mysterious destination of a deep-space faring astronaut in Arthur C. Clarke's novel "2001: A Space Odyssey."Cassini flew within 1,000 miles of Iapetus on Monday and snapped images of its rugged, two-toned surface. As it was sending data back to Earth, it was hit by a cosmic ray that caused a power trip. The spacecraft was not damaged, but had to...
Cassini completed its closest flyby of the odd moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007. The spacecraft flew about 1,640 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Iapetus' surface and is returning amazing views of the bizarre moon. All the data were successfully recorded on the spacecraft. Twenty-one minutes into the first post-flyby data downlink, the spacecraft went into a precautionary condition called "safe mode. The cause has been determined to be a solid state power switch that was tripped due to a...
PASADENA, Calif. -- Cassini will make its only close flyby of Saturn's odd, two-toned, walnut-shaped moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007, at about 1,640 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the surface. This flyby will be 100 times closer than Cassini's 2004 encounter, and will be the last time the spacecraft will aim its instruments at this moon. "Iapetus spun fast, froze young, and left behind a body with lasting curves," said Julie Castillo, Cassini scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion...
Saturn's distinctive moon Iapetus (eye-APP-eh-tuss) is cryogenically frozen in the equivalent of its teenage years. The moon has retained the youthful figure and bulging waistline it sported more than three billion years ago, scientists report. "Iapetus spun fast, froze young, and left behind a body with lasting curves," said Julie Castillo, Cassini scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Unlike any other moon in the solar system, Iapetus is the same shape...
As the Cassini spacecraft reaches the halfway mark in its four-year tour of the Saturn system, discoveries made during the first half of the mission have scientists revved up to find out what's in store for the second act. Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since June 30, 2004, studying the planet, its rings and moons. "The spacecraft has spent a considerable amount of time studying the moon Titan during 15 separate flybys so far. In the second half of its prime mission, ending June 2008,...
LONDON -- There is a hot spot on one of Saturn's moons which should not be there and has yet to be explained, scientists said on Tuesday.It is located at the south pole of Enceladus, a moon with a diameter of just 500 km (310 miles) which orbits Saturn at a distance of around 238,000 km.The hot spot is unusual because it occurs at the pole, scientists said. Usually, the hottest part of any planet or moon is around the equator, as is the case with the earth.This suggests that the heat at...
JPL -- Two new Cassini views of Saturn's tumbling moon Hyperion offer the best looks yet at one of the icy, irregularly-shaped moons that orbit the giant, ringed planet. The views were acquired between June 9 and June 11, 2005, during Cassini's first brush with Hyperion. Hyperion is decidedly non-spherical and its unusual shape is easy to see in the movie, which was acquired over the course of two and a half days. Jagged outlines visible on the moon's surface are indicators of large impacts...
Data from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission are providing convincing evidence that Saturn's moon Phoebe was formed elsewhere in the Solar System, and was only later caught by the planet's gravitational pull. One way to unlock Phoebe's secrets is using Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), developed by a team of US (JPL), French and Italian (ASI) scientists and engineers. The science team is made by a large international group of US, Italian, French and German...
ESA -- Data from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission are providing convincing evidence that Saturn's moon Phoebe was formed elsewhere in the Solar System, and was only later caught by the planet's gravitational pull.One way to unlock Phoebe's secrets is using Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), developed by a team of US (JPL), French and Italian (ASI) scientists and engineers. The science team is made by a large international group of US, Italian, French and...
JPL -- Images returned by NASA's Cassini spacecraft cameras during a New Year's Eve flyby of Saturn's moon Iapetus (eye-APP-eh- tuss) show startling surface features that are fueling heated scientific discussions about their origin. One of these features is a long narrow ridge that lies almost exactly on the equator of Iapetus, bisects its entire dark hemisphere and reaches 20 kilometers high (12 miles). It extends over 1,300 kilometers (808 miles) from side to side, along its midsection. No...
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Saturn's moon Phoebe -- Phoebe is the outermost of Saturn's known moons. Phoebe is almost 4 times more distant from Saturn than its nearest neighbor (Iapetus). It was discovered by William Henry Pickering in 1898. Most of Saturn's moons have very bright surfaces, but Phoebe's albedo is very low (.06), as dark as lampblack. All of Saturn's moons except for Phoebe and Iapetus orbit very nearly in the plane of Saturn's equator. Phoebe's orbit is retrograde, inclined almost 175, and is...
Saturn's moon Rhea -- Rhea is the second largest moon of Saturn. It was discovered in 1672 by Giovanni Cassini. Rhea is an icy body with a density of about 1.24 gm/cm3. This low density indicates that it has a rocky core taking up less than one-third of the moon's mass with the rest composed of water-ice. Rhea's features resemble those of Dione, with dissimilar leading and trailing hemispheres, suggesting similar composition and histories. The temperature on Rhea is -174°C in direct...
Saturn's moon Dione -- Dione is a moon of Saturn discovered by Giovanni Cassini in 1684. It is composed primarily of water ice, but as the densest of Saturn's moons (aside from Titan, whose density is increased by gravitational compression) it must have a considerable fraction of denser material like silicate rock in its interior. Though somewhat smaller, Dione is otherwise very similar to Rhea. They both have similar compositions, albedo features and varied terrain. Both have dissimilar...
The Planet Saturn -- in astronomy, 6th planet from the sun. Astronomical and Physical Characteristics of Saturn Saturn's orbit lies between those of Jupiter and Uranus; its mean distance from the sun is c.886 million mi (1.43 billion km), almost twice that of Jupiter, and its period of revolution is about 291/2 years. Saturn appears in the sky as a yellow, starlike object of the first magnitude. When viewed through a telescope, it is seen as a golden sphere, crossed by a series of...
