Friday, September 15, 2017

Farewell, Cassini, the little probe that could!


Just before 8am EDT today, Cassini, the spacecraft sent to study Saturn and her moons, sent her last signal.  She plunged into the Saturnian atmosphere to end a massively successful mission.  Launched October 15, 1997, she spent Cassini spent 7 years en route and arrived at Saturn in 2004.  For 13 years, she has explored the gas giant and released the Huygens probe from the ESA to land on Titan, a first for a celestial body in the outer solar system.

Cassini did flybys of Jupiter, our moon and Asteroid 2685 Masursky.  She discovered new moons Methone, Pallene, Polydeucesin, Daphnis, Anthe, Aegaeon and S/2009 S 1.  I'm sure they will find a better name for the last one.

She also performed flybys of moons Titan, Phoebe, Enceladus, Iapetus, Rhea, Hyperion and Dione.

Seventeen countries joined together in this effort.

No comments: