NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft

• Conducted By: Cassini probe is a joint endeavor of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency), and the Italian space agency (ASI)
• A Mission to Saturn: Cassini was a sophisticated robotic spacecraft sent to study Saturn in 2004 and its complex system of rings and moons.
  • ESA’s Huygens probe parachuted to Titan, making the first landing on a moon in the outer solar system
• Objectives: 
  • Saturn: To study cloud properties and atmospheric composition, winds and temperatures, internal structure and rotation, ionosphere, origin, and evolution
  • Rings: To observe their structure and composition, dynamical processes, interrelation of rings and satellites, dust and micrometeoroid environment
  • Titan: To study abundances of atmospheric constituents, distribution of trace gases and aerosols, winds and temperatures, composition and state of the surface, and upper atmosphere
  • Icy Satellite: To determine their characteristics and geological histories; study mechanisms of surface modification, surface composition and distribution, overall composition and internal structure, and their interactions with Saturn’s magnetosphere
  • Saturn’s Magnetosphere: To study its structure and electric currents; composition, sources, and sinks of particles within it; dynamics; interaction with the solar wind, satellites, and rings.
• Key Findings:
  • Clean Rings: Saturn’s rings appeared relatively bright and clean with minimal accumulation of space dust particles 
  • Enceladus Moon: Enceladus possesses a global ocean of liquid water, likely with hydrothermal activity on the seafloor
  • Icy plumes: They were found to be abundant in water molecules leaking from Enceladus’s southern hemisphere. 
  • Saturn’s rings were found to be active and dynamic
  • Titan Moon: It has rain, rivers, lakes, and seas; it is shrouded in a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere that might be similar to what Earth’s was like long ago