Tag: Enceladus
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Breakthrough Discuss turns spotlight on search for life elsewhere in solar system
Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco shows a graphic that compares the size of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, with the British Isles. (Breakthrough Initiatives Photo) STANFORD, Calif. — Are there microbes falling in the snows of Enceladus? Could a drone fly to biological hot spots on Titan? Is life floating in the sulfurous clouds of Venus?…
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Billionaire Yuri Milner discusses his plan to look for life on Saturn moon – and his Russian connections
Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, at right, chats with The Economist’s Oliver Morton during the “New Space Age” conference at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Russian billionaire Yuri Milner today laid out his vision to send the first privately funded interplanetary space mission to look for life at the Saturnian moon Enceladus —…
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Cassini orbiter’s team turns Saturn crash into cause for celebration – and for science
An artist’s conception shows the Cassini orbiter zooming through the upper layers of Saturn’s atmosphere, heading for a fiery breakup. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration) Twenty years after its launch to Saturn, NASA has set the Cassini orbiter on a course for certain destruction on Friday – but there’s a decidedly positive spin to the $3.3…
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Hours before its doom, NASA’s Cassini probe takes its parting shots at Saturn
Saturn and its rings star in one of the last raw images sent back by the Cassini orbiter. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute) The final pictures from NASA’s 13-year-long Cassini mission at Saturn are flowing in – and they’re good to the last drop. Or even better, good to the last moonset. Raw images,…
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New discoveries raise prospects for life on moons of Jupiter and Saturn
This diagram of Saturn’s moon Enceladus shows its interior structure, with an icy shell and a subsurface ocean of liquid water over a rocky core. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Scientists announced Thursday that measurements from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft detected hydrogen gas, a key energy source for microbial life, in a plume gushing from a vast liquid water…
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Enceladus’ plumes suggest that Saturn moon’s ocean could support microbial life
This composite image shows how plumes of water emanate from fissures in the surface ice of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. (NASA / JPL Illustration) Scientists have detected molecules of hydrogen in plumes of watery material erupting from cracks in the ice of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn – and that suggests an ocean beneath…
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Study suggests Saturn’s moon Dione has underground ocean
This view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft looks toward Saturn’s icy moon Dione, with giant Saturn and its rings in the background, just prior to the mission’s final close approach to the moon on Aug. 17, 2015. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Scientists crunching data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft believe Saturn’s moon Dione has a liquid ocean…
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Saturn’s moons align for cosmic photo opportunity
Like a cosmic bull’s-eye, Enceladus and Tethys line up almost perfectly for Cassini’s cameras. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute NASA has released an image of Saturn’s moons Enceladus and Tethys caught in a rare alignment by the Cassini spacecraft, which is heading for its final close encounter with the icy moon Enceladus Saturday. Taken Sept. 24,…
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Cassini images just a taste of Enceladus flyby science return
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this view as it neared icy Enceladus for its closest-ever dive past the moon’s active south polar region.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Days after a fleeting plunge through the icy plumes of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is broadcasting tantalizing data back to Earth for scientists eager to address the moon’s…
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Cassini successfully navigates the ice plumes of Saturn’s moon Enceladus
Continuing its exploration at the ringed giant of the solar system, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has completed a dive through the ice plume ejecta material of the Saturnian moon Enceladus. The dive, designed to collect data about the mysterious subterranean salt water ocean on Enceladus, took Cassini on its deepest dive ever into the mysterious plumes of the ice…