Capturing and holding the attention of the general public for space exploration purposes is often a difficult thing to achieve. But 2013 saw not only NASA but also the China National Space Administration do just that through a series of new and continuing voyages to the Moon and Saturn.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nYIR Part II: Lunar exploration \u2013 welcoming China to a select group:
\n*Click here for Part I*\n<\/p>\n
When 2013 began, the United States was the only country with operating lunar probes and an active lunar exploration program.<\/p>\n
By the end of the year, lunar operations surged with both NASA and Chinese missions expanding lunar exploration capabilities.<\/p>\n
For NASA, 2013\u2019s lunar exploration saw the addition of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) satellite to the U.S. space agency\u2019s pantheon of operational lunar missions: ARTEMIS 1 (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon\u2019s Interaction with the Sun 1), ARTEMIS 2, and LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter).<\/p>\n
(ARTEMIS 1 and 2 are repurposed THEMIS probes which were launched on their original mission in February 2007 and repurposed for lunar exploration in April-July 2011).<\/p>\n
![\"LADEE\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Z41.jpg\")
LADEE, the first NASA lunar exploration mission led by the Ames Research Center in collaboration with the Goddard Space Flight Center, was launched from the Wallops Flight Facility at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in in the U.S. state of Virginia on 7 September 2013 at 0327 UTC aboard a Minotaur V rocket.<\/p>\n
Aerospace industry analysis (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n From the beginning, the general public and American news media gave considerable coverage to LADEE because of the mission\u2019s launch location.<\/p>\n Since the United States first attempted to launch a probe to the moon in August 1958, which was also Humanity\u2019s first attempt to lunch a probe to the moon, all but one of the United States\u2019 lunar missions had attempted to or actually launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station or the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.<\/p>\n The one previous exception had been the Clementine mission for the U.S. Air Force and NASA, which launched aboard a Titan II rocket on 25 January 1994 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.<\/p>\n Due to the unique launch location, LADEE presented particular interest to the general public and American news media as its nighttime launch aboard a solid propellant vehicle would be visible to the most-densely populated corridor in the United States.<\/p>\n When LADEE launched, it did not disappoint \u2013 with observers witnessing the climb of the Minotaur V rocket from as far south as the state of South Carolina and throughout the populated cities of Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston.<\/p>\n Even after the successful launch, the American news media and general public continued to maintain interest in LADEE\u2019s launch due to a unique photo bomb event when a frog was captured on still-photography as it took a flight of it own, having been caught in the intense wind currents generated by the Minotaur V\u2019s first stage engine at liftoff.<\/p>\n Normally, though not always, NASA utilizes rockets such as the Atlas V and Delta II that have enough launch power to send lunar probes on direct insertion flight paths to the moon.<\/p>\n However, this time was different and required LADEE to use a unique, highly elliptical Earth orbit to make three increasingly larger orbits of Earth before it was close enough to the moon to be entered into lunar orbit.<\/p>\n After a month-long cruise, LADEE entered orbit of the moon on 6 October in an elliptical capture orbit of 24hour duration.<\/p>\n On 9 October, LADEE\u2019s orbit was refined to a 4hour duration orbit before finally settling into a circular orbit of 250 km (160 miles) on 12 October.<\/p>\n LADEE then entered a commissioning and checkout period during which the first major milestone of the scientific portion of the mission was reached.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was amazing how quickly we were able to acquire the first signals, especially from such a distance,\u201d said Don Cornwell, LLCD manager. \u201cI attribute this success to the great work accomplished over the years by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT\/LL) and their partnership with NASA.\u201d<\/p>\n The test set numerous firsts for NASA including a downlink record of 622 megabits per second from spacecraft to ground and an error-free data upload rate of 20 Mbps from ground station to spacecraft.<\/p>\n The LLCD instrument is NASA\u2019s first attempt at two-way space communication using an optical laser instead of traditional radio waves. The system is expected to lead to operational laser communication systems on future NASA satellites.<\/p>\n \u201cLLCD is the first step on our roadmap toward building the next generation of space communication capability,\u201d said Badri Younes, NASA\u2019s deputy associate administrator for space communications and navigation in Washington, which sponsored LLCD. \u201cWe are encouraged by the results of the demonstration to this point, and we are confident we are on the right path to introduce this new capability into operational service soon.\u201d<\/p>\n The orbit was specifically chosen to allow the probe to make frequent passes from lunar day to lunar night, providing scientists a full range of the changes and processes occurring within the moon\u2019s tenuous atmosphere.<\/p>\n The orbit will also allow scientists to study the conditions in the lunar atmosphere during lunar sunrise and sunset, where previous crewed and robotic missions detected a mysterious glow of rays and streamers reaching high into the lunar sky.<\/p>\n Commissioning of the spacecraft was officially completed by 22 November with mission scientists declaring that LADEE was ready to begin the primary scientific phase of its mission.<\/p>\n That 100-day primary scientific phase officially began on 11 December 2013 \u2013 just 10 days after and three days before a major world power finally began and then very successfully entered the arena of lunar surface exploration.<\/p>\n Launch of the Chang\u2019e 3 mission represented the first lunar landing and rover mission for China as part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program.<\/p>\n Five days after launch, on 6 December, Chang\u2019e 3 successfully achieved a lunar orbit of 15-100km after 361 seconds of variable thrust engine braking from its single main engine.<\/p>\n Eight days later, as the probe reached orbital periapsis, its variable thrusters fired to reduce the probe\u2019s velocity and bring it to 100 meters above the lunar surface.<\/p>\n The probe then descended to an altitude of 4 meters, at which point its engines were shut down and the probe free-fell to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n After a 12 minute landing sequence, Chang\u2019e 3 successfully soft-landed on the surface of the moon in the Mare Imbrium at 1311 UTC on 14 December, becoming the first probe to do so since the Luna 24 mission in 1976.<\/p>\n With the landing, China became only the third nation behind the Soviet Union and the United States to successfully soft land a mission on the moon, and became the fourth nation to successfully send a vehicle to the surface of the moon following the Soviet Union, United States, and India\u2019s impactor-only mission in 2009.<\/p>\n And as space enthusiasts around the world watched the historical event on television, NASA\u2019s LADEE probe, 1300 km to the south of Chang\u2019e 3\u2019s landing site, also watched the descent and landing.<\/p>\n To gather the most accurate data possible, LADEE\u2019s science instruments gathered data on the dust and gas species before and after the landing to provide the science team with a comparison.<\/p>\n As LADEE\u2019s instruments watched, Chang\u2019e 3 descended to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n After the landing observation period concluded, scientists were somewhat baffled by the evaluation of data from LADEE\u2019s science instruments.<\/p>\n As reported earlier this month, the LADEE science teams\u2019 preliminary evaluation of the data did not reveal any effects attributed to Chang\u2019e 3. No increase in dust was observed by the LDEX instrument, no change was seen by UVS, and no propulsion products were measured by NMS.<\/p>\n While the results were surprising, the science team was quick to point out that it is actually an important and useful result for LADEE not to have detected the descent and landing as it indicates that exhaust products from a large robotic lander do not overwhelm the native lunar exosphere.<\/p>\n While LADEE\u2019s observation of Chang\u2019e 3\u2019s landing was brief, Chang\u2019e 3\u2019s landing day was met not only with the historic soft landing on the moon but also with the deployment of a rover onto the lunar surface just seven hours after landing.<\/p>\n The Chang\u2019e 3 lander is expected to survive at least one year on the lunar surface while the Yutu rover is expected to spend its three-month mission exploring a 3 square kilometer area around the lander and only travel a maximum distance of 10 kilometers away from the lander.<\/p>\n By 25 December, the Yutu rover and Chang\u2019e 3 lander were placed into their first lunar night hibernation cycle as they await the return of daylight to their landing site in early January. (Night last two Earth weeks on the moon.)<\/p>\n Saturn \u2013 the year Earth waved at the ringed planet:<\/p>\n For Cassini, 2013 with another banner year in orbit of Saturn.<\/p>\n Orbiting what is arguably the most iconic and recognizable planet with the solar system (other than Earth) since 2004, Cassini continues to observe seasonal changes in the Saturnian system as the ringed planet continues its 29.5 Earth year-long orbit around the sun.<\/p>\n \u201cWe associate this particular kind of ice cloud with winter weather on Titan, and this is the first time we have detected it anywhere but the north pole,\u201d said the study\u2019s lead author, Donald E. Jennings, a CIRS Co-Investigator at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.<\/p>\n According to data returned from Cassini, the southern ice cloud is currently only detectable in the far infrared part of the light spectrum and provides evidence that an important pattern of global air circulation on Titan has reversed direction in the 9.5 years since Cassini\u2019s arrival in the Saturnian system in July 2004.<\/p>\n That pattern is now reversing, and with new evidence presented from Cassini, scientists have been able to trace the air current shift to within a six-month period of the Titan equinox in 2009.<\/p>\n The new findings stem from 2012 observations by the Cassini spacecraft and the detection in early 2012 of a high-altitude haze hood and a swirling polar vortex at Titan\u2019s south pole, features that had long been associated with the colder north pole during Cassini\u2019s tenure at Saturn and Titan.<\/p>\n \u201cThis lag makes sense because first the new circulation pattern has to bring loads and loads of gases to the south pole. Then the air has to sink. The ices have to condense. And the pole has to be under enough shadow to protect the vapors that condense to form those ices,\u201d said Carrie Anderson, a CIRS team member and Cassini participating scientist at NASA Goddard.<\/p>\n Interestingly enough, the identity of the ices in the polar ice clouds has yet to be determined, though scientists have ruled out simple chemicals, such as methane, ethane, and hydrogen cyanide that are typically associated with Titan.<\/p>\n One possibility scientists are pursing is that the ice could, interestingly enough, be a mixture of organic compounds.<\/p>\n The longevity of the hydrocarbon lakes on Titan\u2019s surface has long since been an area of interest for scientists as Titan is the only other body aside from Earth within the solar system that has stable liquid on its surface.<\/p>\n The dominant molecule on Titan is methane, which scientists are fairly sure is at the heart of a cycle on Titan that is somewhat similar to the role of water in Earth\u2019s hydrological cycle, causing rain, carving channels, and evaporating from lakes.<\/p>\n Thus, the enduring mystery on Titan for the last nine years of Cassini\u2019s observations has been a remarkable consistency in the size and shape of the hydrocarbon lakes \u2013 as one would expect to see the effects of methane evaporation from the lakes.<\/p>\n Even taking into account the occasional outburst of hydrocarbon rain on Titan, the lakes consistent appearances do not reflect what scientists would expect to see if their primary composition was methane.<\/p>\n Additional evidence revealed mounting evidence that indicates that the methane on Titan is constantly being lost by being broken down to form ethane and other heavier molecules and is not being replaced by fresh methane from the interior of the moon.<\/p>\n This could result in a depletion of Titan\u2019s methane within tens of millions of years.<\/p>\n Following on the heels of the ice cloud and methane reports from Titan, Cassini also returned data on the observance of the large hurricane churning at Saturn\u2019s north pole and of meteors breaking apart and colliding with Saturn\u2019s rings.<\/p>\n By the end of May, scientists using data from Cassini we able to create the first global topographic map of the Titan and create what they hope is a verifiable weather forecast (including wave detection and hurricane forecasts) for Titan\u2019s northern hemisphere in the coming years (the forecast based on nine years worth of observation by the Cassini spacecraft).<\/p>\n \u201cA picture is emerging that suggests Dione could be a fossil of the wondrous activity Cassini discovered spraying from Saturn\u2019s geyser moon Enceladus or perhaps a weaker copycat Enceladus,\u201d said Bonnie Buratti of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who leads the Cassini science team that studies icy satellites.<\/p>\n The new evidence comes from Cassini\u2019s magnetometer, which detected a faint particle stream coming from Dione and revealed evidence for a possible liquid or slushy layer under the moon\u2019s rock-hard ice crust.<\/p>\n Examination of Hi-Res photography of the moon\u2019s surface also revealed ancient, inactive fractures on Dione similar to the ones on Enceladus that currently spew water ice and organic particles.<\/p>\n Similar to Enceladus, Dione undergoes gravitational heating as the moon is stretched and squeezed during its orbit of Saturn.<\/p>\n With the May announcement of Dione\u2019s potential activity revealed, attention with Saturn quickly turned to an upcoming July event that promised to unite hundreds of thousands of people across the surface of Earth.<\/p>\n The event, announced by NASA on 18 June, would involve the Cassini spacecraft passing into Saturn\u2019s shadow, an event which would present the rare opportunity to collect the most detailed mosaic photograph of Saturn\u2019s ring system while it would be backlit by the sun.<\/p>\n Based on the orbital parameters of the Cassini spacecraft as well as Saturn\u2019s position relative to the sun, it was announced that the mosaic image would capture not only Saturn but also the planets Venus, Mars, as well as Earth and its moon.<\/p>\n The 19 July event coincided coincidently with the Mercury MESSENGER spacecraft\u2019s campaign to search for natural satellites of the closest planet to the sun. In conjunction with the Wave At Saturn event, NASA understood that Earth would also appear in some of the images collected by MESSENGER on 20 July.<\/p>\n Specifically, the MESSENGER images of Earth would be taken at an angle where the illuminated side of Earth for MESSENGER would be the non-illuminated side of Earth in the Cassini image.<\/p>\n Thus, over the course of two days, people on every major populated continent would be able to participate in a near global image of Earth taken by two spacecraft orbiting different planets.<\/p>\n The Wave At Saturn event garnered more public and media attention than the MESSENGER photograph event.<\/p>\n At allotted time on 19 July, Cassini acquired the mosaic of Saturn and with it Earth.<\/p>\n Examination of the detailed photograph of the Earth revealed Cassini\u2019s resolution power as the principal camera taking the mosaic was able to clearly capture not only Earth but also Earth\u2019s moon (as two distinct, separate objects), helping scientist refine imaging techniques for in-solar and extra-solar moons.<\/p>\n While the Wave At Saturn of event garnered most of the attention, the primary purpose of the mosaic image was to study Saturn\u2019s rings in intricate detail as the backlit nature of the ring system at that time allowed Cassini to image fine granulated particles in the rings that are normally unobservable during normal light operations.<\/p>\n By the end of July, scientists using data from the Cassini orbiter had finally confirmed the long-sought after and hypothesized force controlling Enceladus\u2019 (moon) water jets and the jets\u2019 intensities.<\/p>\n For years, scientists hypothesized that the intensity of the jets likely varied over time, but evidence could not be found to support that or to discern a recognizable pattern in the intensity of the jets.<\/p>\n This year, however, scientists were able to see the very changes they sought by examining infrared data of the plume as a whole (the composite ejecta from all the jets on Enceladus), obtained by Cassini\u2019s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS).<\/p>\n Analyzing data from the VIMS gathered between 2005 and 2012, scientists were able to determine that the aggregate plume from Enceladus was dimmest when the moon was at the closest point in its orbit to Saturn and would gradually brighten until Enceladus was at the most distant point in its orbit.<\/p>\n Comparing this new data to previous models of how Saturn squeezes and stretches Enceladus during the moon\u2019s orbit was enough to deduce that the stronger gravitational squeeze experienced by Enceladus when it is closest to Saturn squeezes the tiger stripe formations where the jets form and prevents large amounts of material from leaving the jets.<\/p>\n And the discoveries kept on coming.<\/p>\n An analysis of gravity and topography data of Titan indicated that the moon\u2019s ice shell could be rigid and that relatively small topographic features on the surface could be associated with large ice \u201croots\u201d extending into the underlying ocean.<\/p>\n As explained by Francis Nimmo from the University of California, Santa Cruz, \u201cNormally, if you fly over a mountain, you expect to see an increase in gravity due to the extra mass of the mountain. On Titan, when you fly over a mountain, the gravity gets lower. That\u2019s a very odd observation.\u201d<\/p>\n To explain the strange observation, scientists hypothesized that each rise in the topography on the surface of Titan is offset by a deeper \u201croot\u201d that is a big enough to overwhelm the gravitational effect of the rise.<\/p>\n In simpler terms, the rise and \u201croot\u201d would act like an iceberg, creating a \u201cless gravity\u201d pocket.<\/p>\n It would also suggest that plate tectonics are not recycling Titan\u2019s ice shell.<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t just the moons and rings of Saturn that held surprises for scientist this year; Saturn itself proved once again that it harbors deep secrets in its atmosphere.<\/p>\n On 3 September, scientists announced the discovery of water ice in the atmosphere of Saturn, the first such indication and detection of water ice at\/in the ringed planet.<\/p>\n Stemming from ongoing observations of a massive atmospheric storm that first appeared in late 2010, new findings from the Cassini spacecraft revealed that the storm had dredged up water ice from more than 160 km (100 miles) below Saturn\u2019s upper atmosphere.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think this huge thunderstorm is driving these cloud particles upward, sort of like a volcano bringing up material from the depths and making it visible from outside the atmosphere,\u201d said Lawrence Sromovsky of the University of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n \u201cThe upper haze is so optically thick that it is only in the stormy regions where the haze is penetrated by powerful updrafts that you can see evidence for the ammonia ice and the water ice. Those storm particles have an infrared color signature that is very different from the haze particles in the surrounding atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Capturing and holding the attention of the general public for space exploration purposes is often a difficult thing to achieve. But 2013 saw not only NASA but also the China National Space Administration do just that through a series of new and continuing voyages to the Moon and Saturn. YIR Part II: Lunar exploration \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2394,9083,4070,625,1562,2396],"class_list":["post-39678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-cassini","tag-ladee","tag-messenger","tag-moon","tag-saturn","tag-titan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Z3\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z36.jpg\")
For LADEE, a new first would be a lunar launch from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the first eastern seaboard lunar mission to lunch from a location other than the nation\u2019s primary spaceport in Florida.<\/p>\n![\"LADEE](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Z9.jpg\")
Scientifically, though, a unique and usually unheard of aspect to the mission was the fact that the Minotaur V rocket chosen to launch LADEE lacked the necessary thrust to place the satellite into a direct lunar transfer orbit.<\/p>\n![\"LADEE\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Z33.jpg\")
On 18 October, scientists successfully tested LADEE\u2019s Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) pulsed laser system by transmitting data between the spacecraft and its ground station on Earth at a distance of 385,000 kilometers (239,000 mi).<\/p>\n![\"Z4\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z43.jpg\")
By 20 November, LADEE was successfully maneuvered into a two-hour orbit around the moon\u2019s equator at an altitude ranging between 12-60 km (eight to 37 miles).<\/p>\n![\"Z5\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z51.jpg\")
On 1 December 2013 the China National Space Administration (CNSA) successfully began its lunar surface campaign with the launch of the Chang\u2019e 3 mission via the Long March 3B Y-23 rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center (Base 27) near Xichang, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichaun, People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n![\"Z99\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z99.jpg\")
Once at this altitude, the probe hovered and moved horizontally under its own guidance to avoid surface obstacles.<\/p>\n![\"Z8\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z87.jpg\")
The evening before Chang\u2019e 3\u2019s landing, LADEE mission controllers uploaded a command sequence that scheduled the science instruments for operations during the Chang\u2019e 3 landing period.<\/p>\n![\"Z12\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z122.jpg\")
The normal native lunar atmospheric species seen by UVS and NMS prior to Chang\u2019e 3\u2019s landing were also apparently unaffected.<\/p>\n![\"Z11\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z1115.jpg\")
The Yutu rover, meaning Jade Rabbit \u2013 named after the mythological rabbit living on the surface of the moon in Chinese mythology, descended from the Chang\u2019e 3 lander and officially made contact with the lunar surface at 2035 UTC on 14 December.<\/p>\n![\"Z13\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z13.jpg\")
In April, during a close encounter with Saturn\u2019s principal moon Titan, the Cassini orbiter\u2019s Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) recorded seasonal ice cloud formations over Titan\u2019s southern polar region \u2013 seasonal ice clouds that had until this year only been observed in the northern polar region of the atmosphered-moon.<\/p>\n![\"Cassini](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Z112-350x257.jpg\")
When Cassini first observed the circulation pattern in Titan\u2019s atmosphere, warm air from the southern hemisphere was transported to the cold north pole of the moon. Once there, the air cooled and sank down to lower layers of the atmosphere, where it formed ice clouds.<\/p>\n![\"Z14\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z142.jpg\")
By July 2012, a few months after the detection of the haze hood and vortex, this CIRS instrument aboard Cassini finally detected the southern polar ice cloud.<\/p>\n![\"Z22\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z222.jpg\")
Following this announcement came the release of another report from information on Titan gathered over the previous years by Cassini regarding the hydrocarbon lakes on the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n![\"Z23\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z231.jpg\")
This new data from Cassini has led to a new theory regarding the lakes\u2019 composition. Since methane tends to evaporate quickly, scientists hypothesized in April that Titan\u2019s lakes are actually dominated by methane\u2019s sister hydrocarbon ethane, which evaporates more slowly.<\/p>\n![\"Z24\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z241.jpg\")
Both of these observations yielded important information to scientists as well as new mysteries for Cassini to explore in the coming year that could have important impacts for Earth as we learn more about meteor impacts throughout the solar system and the process of water vapor consumption within hurricanes on Earth and Saturn.<\/p>\n![\"Z25\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z251.jpg\")
Also by the end of May came new evidence from Cassini that the Saturnian moon Dione was active in the past and could still be active now.<\/p>\n![\"Z26\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z261.jpg\")
While the reason why Enceladus is far more active than Dione has yet to be answered, the find of a relative liquid or slushy layer under Dione\u2019s surface yields further evidence to the potential large-scale nature of subsurface oceans on icy worlds and moons both interior and exterior to the solar system.<\/p>\n![\"Z27\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z271.jpg\")
Capitalizing on the ability to engage the general public\u2019s interest with exploration at Saturn, NASA quickly created the event Wave At Saturn in which anyone who wished to participate would, between 2127-2142 UTC on 19 July, turn and wave in the direction of Saturn during the time frame in which Cassini would acquire the photograph of Earth.<\/p>\nSee Also<\/h4>\n
\n
![\"Z28\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z281.jpg\")
Since their initial discovery in 2005, the water geysers and jets of Enceladus have captivated the attention of scientists not just for their indication of a large saltwater ocean below the surface of Enceladus\u2019 icy crust, but also for the reason for their forcefulness.<\/p>\n![\"Z29\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z291.jpg\")
In August, scientists released analysis of new data points from Cassini suggesting that the moon Titan may have a rigid ice shell.<\/p>\n![\"Z30\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z30.jpg\")
If this hypothesis is correct, it would seemingly invalidate or at the very least make it very difficult to have ice volcanoes on Titan, which some scientists have proposed to explain other features seen on the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n![\"Z32\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Z322.jpg\")
Further analysis of the massive storm that has engulfed most of the northern hemisphere at 30 degrees north latitude has revealed that it functions in much the same way as a thunderstorm does on Earth, where air and water vapor are pushed high into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n