Cassini Spacecraft To Take Picture Of Earth From Nearly 900 Million Miles Away
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The jointly operated NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens orbiter exploring Saturn is set to take a spectacular image of Earth this afternoon – July 19 – during a solar eclipse of the sixth...
Latest Saturn Stories
WASHINGTON, June 18, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft, now exploring Saturn, will take a picture of our home planet from a distance of hundreds of millions of miles on July 19. NASA is inviting the public to help acknowledge the historic interplanetary portrait as it is being taken. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Earth will appear as a small, pale blue dot between the rings of Saturn in the image, which will be part of a mosaic,...
Granutech-Saturn introduces next-generation grinder for rubber scrap recycling, industrial tires, non-ferrous metals, biomass and escap -- at unprecedented capacity of up to 10 tons-per-hour. Grand Prairie, TX (PRWEB) June 04, 2013 Granutech-Saturn Systems, a world-leading manufacturer of industrial recycling equipment has announced its next-generation Saturn Grizzly® grinder series for tire recycling and a broad scope of recycling materials. The new Grizzly Super80 (S-80) model,...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Once considered to be an afterthought when it came to Saturn’s moons, scientists now believe Dione likely had an active geological history after analyzing data sent back from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. "A picture is emerging that suggests Dione could be a fossil of the wondrous activity Cassini discovered spraying from Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus or perhaps a weaker copycat Enceladus," said Cassini team leader Bonnie Buratti of...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA scientists are predicting that Saturn's moon Titan is in for some wild weather during its spring and summer seasons. The space agency said it believes that as the seasons change in Titan's northern hemisphere, waves could ripple across the moon's hydrocarbon seas, and hurricanes could start swirling around in these areas. Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft helped create the models that led to the predictions. "If you think...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The first global topographical map of Saturn’s moon Titan was created by scientists at the Cassini-Huygens mission. The map, published as part of a paper in the journal Icarus, will give researchers a valuable tool for learning more about one of the most Earth-like and interesting worlds in the solar system. With a radius of approximately 1,600 miles, Titan is Saturn’s largest moon. As the second-largest moon in the Solar System,...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA's Cassini spacecraft has helped shed light on one way the bubble of charged particles around Saturn changes with the planet's seasons. Earth has a magnetosphere like Saturn, and the latest results may help scientists better understand variations in it and the Van Allen radiation belts, which both affect things from space flight safety to satellite and cell phone communications. Researchers wrote in the Journal of Geophysical...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online At the dawn of our Solar System the planets were very hot, as the energy from their creation lingered. But over time the planets would cool, becoming darker, only occasionally paused in this process by large impacts or radioactive decay. At least that is what we would expect. A mystery that has puzzled scientists for half a century revolves around the appearance of the planet Saturn. The second largest planet in our Solar...
[ Watch the Video: Mysterious Hurricane at Saturn’s North Pole ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided an incredible view of a monster storm on Saturn with clouds moving as fast as 300 miles per hour. High-resolution pictures and video of the storm gives a unique perspective of a hurricane with an eye measuring about 1,250 miles, which is about 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. NASA said the hurricane is...
WASHINGTON, April 29, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane's eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of...
[ Watch the Video: ScienceCasts: Saturn Close Up ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online This weekend, stargazers should dust-off their telescopes and catch a glimpse of Saturn at its best and brightest. On Sunday, April 28th, Saturn will be making its closest approach to Earth, appearing bigger and brighter than at any other time in 2013. Astronomers refer to this event as "an opposition," because Saturn will be opposite the sun in the skies of Earth. The planet...
Latest Saturn Reference Libraries
Cassini-Huygens Mission -- The Cassini unmanned space probe is intended to study Saturn and its moons. It was launched on October 15, 1997 and is estimated to enter Saturn's orbit on July 1, 2004. The mission is a joined NASA/ESA project. Cassini's principal objectives are to: -- determine the three-dimensional structure and dynamical behavior of the rings -- determine the composition of the satellite surfaces and the geological history of each object -- determine the nature...
Gas Giant -- A gas giant is a generic astronomical term invented by the science fiction writer James Blish to describe any large planet that is not composed mostly of rock or other solid matter. Gas giants may still have a solid core - in fact, it is expected that such a core is probably required for a gas giant to form - but the majority of its mass is in the form of gas (or gas compressed into a liquid state). Unlike rocky planets, gas giants do not have a well-defined surface. There...
Planet Neptune -- Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun. It is a gas giant. Orbiting so far from the sun, Neptune receives very little heat. Its 'surface' temperature is -218 degrees Celsius (below zero). However, the planet seems to have an internal source of heat. It is thought that this may be leftover heat generated by infalling matter during the planet's birth, now slowly radiating away into space. Neptune's atmosphere has the highest wind speeds in the solar system, up to...
Uranus -- Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun. It is a gas giant. Physical characteristics Uranus is composed primarily of rock and various ices, with only about 15% hydrogen and a little helium (in contrast to Jupiter and Saturn which are mostly hydrogen). Uranus (and Neptune) are in many ways similar to the cores of Jupiter and Saturn minus the massive liquid metallic hydrogen envelope. It appears that Uranus does not have a rocky core like Jupiter and Saturn but rather...
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...
