Tag: Saturn
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Cassini crashes into Saturn, ending 20-year mission
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…
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Fighting for science to the last: Cassini mission ends with smash-up at Saturn
Cassini project manager Earl Maize hugs Julie Webster, spacecraft operations team manager, at Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory just after the mission’s end. Program scientist Linda Spilker is at left, and Jim Green, the head of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, is at right. (NASA Photo / Joel Kowsky) Before its destruction, the bus-sized…
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Cassini races toward fiery mission-ending plunge into Saturn
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…
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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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38 years after Pioneer 11, Cassini enters final 2 weeks of Saturnian mission
Exactly 38 years to the day after Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to encounter the planet Saturn, NASA’s flagship mission to the ringed planet, Cassini, is entering the final two weeks of its storied mission. Cassini’s final timeline will begin on 12 September with “the kiss goodbye” – a gravitational nudge from Titan – that…
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38 years after Pioneer 11, Cassini enters final 2 weeks of Saturnian mission
Exactly 38 years to the day after Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to encounter the planet Saturn, NASA’s flagship mission to the ringed planet, Cassini, is entering the final two weeks of its storied mission. Cassini’s final timeline will begin on 12 September with “the kiss goodbye” – a gravitational nudge from Titan – that…
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NASA releases inside-out view of Saturn’s rings
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…
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NASA counts down final month of Cassini’s tour of Saturn
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…
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Cassini survives closest brush with Saturn’s inner ring
This unprocessed image from Cassini’s camera taken Sunday shows Saturn (upper right) and a portion of the planet’s rings refracted through Saturn’s atmosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Barreling through space near the inner edge of Saturn’s wispy D ring, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shielded itself from bits of ice and dust Sunday as the probe made…