Tag: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

  • Cassini’s farewell to Saturn

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    Cassini’s wide-angle camera recorded 80 images in just over two hours on Sept. 13 for a final full mosaic of Saturn. This view includes 42 of those images taken in red, green and blue spectral filters to create a natural color mosaic. Six of Saturn’s moons — Enceladus, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Pandora and Prometheus —…

  • Scientists suggest streaks on Martian hillsides are dry flows

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    This inner slope of a Martian crater has several of the seasonal dark streaks called “recurrent slope lineae,” or RSL, that a November 2017 report interprets as granular flows, rather than darkening due to flowing water. The image is from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/USGS Intermittent flows that appear on…

  • Engineers hopeful Mars rover’s drill can return to service

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    File photo of the Curiosity rover’s turret of tools at the end of its robotic arm, as seen shortly after its landing on Mars in August 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Engineers have started testing a new way to use the Curiosity rover’s drill to bore into Martian rocks after a motor in the device stalled late…

  • NASA’s Dawn mission gears up for close look at Ceres

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    This artist concept shows NASA’s Dawn spacecraft above dwarf planet Ceres, as seen in images from the mission. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will remain at Ceres for the rest of its mission, heading closer to the asteroid belt’s largest resident than ever before to obtain new measurements of ice, salts and a tenuous intermittent…

  • Cassini results still keeping scientists busy

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    Cassini took this image of Saturn in April 2016 from a distance of approximately 1.9 million miles (3 million kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Scientists examining data from the Cassini mission’s final months reported this week unexpected measurements of Saturn’s gravity field and outer atmosphere, suggesting they may have to revisit theories about the planet’s…

  • Scientists celebrate 10th anniversary of Dawn mission’s launch

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    Artist’s concept of the Dawn spacecraft with imagery of Ceres (left) and Vesta (right) captured during the mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech In the ten years since its launch from Cape Canaveral, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has orbited the two largest worlds in the asteroid belt and overcome defective components that threatened to derail the mission on its…

  • Cassini crashes into Saturn, ending 20-year mission

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    STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Dutifully beaming back data to the very end, NASA’s long-lived Cassini probe slammed into Saturn’s atmosphere at some 77,000 mph Friday, blazing like a shooting star as it was ripped apart and incinerated in the final chapter of an enormously successful mission. Cassini program manager at JPL, Earl…

  • Cassini races toward fiery mission-ending plunge into Saturn

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    STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION NASA TV coverage of the end of Cassini’s mission begins at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT) Friday, Sept. 15. Thirteen years after reaching Saturn, NASA’s nuclear-powered Cassini spacecraft raced through its 294th and final orbit Thursday, collecting priceless data while hurtling toward a kamikaze-like plunge into the ringed planet’s…

  • NASA releases inside-out view of Saturn’s rings

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    Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Continuing to make discoveries in the final weeks of a historic mission at Saturn, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has recorded a unique time lapse movie looking out toward the planet’s iconic icy rings. Cassini captured imagery to assemble the movie during an Aug. 20 swing through the gap between Saturn and its…

  • NASA counts down final month of Cassini’s tour of Saturn

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    Artist’s concept of the Cassini spacecraft during one the mission’s five dives into the uppermost layers of Saturn’s atmosphere before the mission ends Sept. 15. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Cassini orbiter sailed through the tenuous outermost reaches of Saturn’s atmosphere without trouble Monday, performing the first of five close swings nearer to the planet than any…