Derec
Contributor
This morning, the Cassini space probe is being sent on its final voyage into the atmosphere of Saturn to burn up.
Cassini: Saturn probe heads towards destruction
Official JPL site
Cassini was able to capture many amazing photos of Saturn, its moons and its rings. It also had other scientific instruments for capturing less photogenic data. And there was a smaller, European probe, named Huygens which landed on Titan and gave us a lot of information about that weird world. Among amazing things Cassini itself discovered were geysers on the moon Enceladus.
Here are some of Cassini photos, courtesy of NY Times.
Cassini’s Mission to Saturn in 100 Images
Saturn's hexagonal version of the jet stream (in infrared).
Daphnis, one of the moons, leaving a ripple behind.
Cassini was launched in 1997, 2 decades ago, not without controversy, and reached the Saturn system in 2004, 13 years ago. To put that into perspective, it was launched before Monica Lewinski became a household name and the Internet was something you connected through a landline, and orbited around Saturn since before John Kerry lost his election or YouTube was launched.
Cassini used the technique of gaining momentum through careful flybys of planets, robbing them of an infinitesimal amount of momentum/energy in order to propel itself forward.
This is the flight path of the probe.
As you can see, Earth itself was used for one of these flyby maneuvers.
The controversy stemmed from the fact that Cassini carried some 23 kg (50lbs) of highly radioactive Pu-238 in its 3 RTGs (radioisiotope thermoelectric generators) that use radioactive heat (Pu-238 has a half-life of 87 years and thus high specific activity) to provide electricity for on-board instruments and radio communications (as well as small units to heat the instruments). It's the same thing that Mark Whatley dug up in "The Martian". Saturn is so far away (9-10 AUs, meaning about 1% of sunlight we get here at 1 AU) that solar power would be impractical even using today's technology, much less that available in the 90s. There even were protests and petitions, even in http://www.taz.de/Archiv-Suche/!1378918&s=&SuchRahmen=Print/"]Europe[/URL], despite the fact that RTGs were used successfully for decades.
Cassini: Saturn probe heads towards destruction
Official JPL site
Cassini was able to capture many amazing photos of Saturn, its moons and its rings. It also had other scientific instruments for capturing less photogenic data. And there was a smaller, European probe, named Huygens which landed on Titan and gave us a lot of information about that weird world. Among amazing things Cassini itself discovered were geysers on the moon Enceladus.
Here are some of Cassini photos, courtesy of NY Times.
Cassini’s Mission to Saturn in 100 Images
Saturn's hexagonal version of the jet stream (in infrared).
Daphnis, one of the moons, leaving a ripple behind.
Cassini was launched in 1997, 2 decades ago, not without controversy, and reached the Saturn system in 2004, 13 years ago. To put that into perspective, it was launched before Monica Lewinski became a household name and the Internet was something you connected through a landline, and orbited around Saturn since before John Kerry lost his election or YouTube was launched.
Cassini used the technique of gaining momentum through careful flybys of planets, robbing them of an infinitesimal amount of momentum/energy in order to propel itself forward.
This is the flight path of the probe.
As you can see, Earth itself was used for one of these flyby maneuvers.
The controversy stemmed from the fact that Cassini carried some 23 kg (50lbs) of highly radioactive Pu-238 in its 3 RTGs (radioisiotope thermoelectric generators) that use radioactive heat (Pu-238 has a half-life of 87 years and thus high specific activity) to provide electricity for on-board instruments and radio communications (as well as small units to heat the instruments). It's the same thing that Mark Whatley dug up in "The Martian". Saturn is so far away (9-10 AUs, meaning about 1% of sunlight we get here at 1 AU) that solar power would be impractical even using today's technology, much less that available in the 90s. There even were protests and petitions, even in http://www.taz.de/Archiv-Suche/!1378918&s=&SuchRahmen=Print/"]Europe[/URL], despite the fact that RTGs were used successfully for decades.
