NASA Cassini Probe Celebrates 10 Years orbiting Saturn - Video

A photo taken of Saturn by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been exploring the Saturn system for 10 years. Image uploaded June 30, 2014.

Credit: NASA/JPL

NASA spacecraft Cassini passes a big milestone, a decade exploring Saturn and its many moons.

Since arriving in orbit around Saturn 10 years ago today, the Cassini probe has made a number of unprecedented observations and discoveries.

Although the spacecraft was originally approved for a four-year mission, it has been granted three mission extensions, allowing it to continue roaming the gas giant’s system.

Linda Spilker

"Having a healthy, long-lived spacecraft at Saturn has afforded us a precious opportunity," Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

"By having a decade there with Cassini, we have been privileged to witness never-before-seen events that are changing our understanding of how planetary systems form and what conditions might lead to habitats for life."

For example, Cassini has helped scientists learn more about what kinds of molecules populate our solar system.

The spacecraft discovered plumes containing water-ice shooting out into space from the south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus.



The Enceladus discovery is one of Cassini’s most remarkable findings because it marked an extension of the search for life in the solar system, NASA officials said.

Researchers know that life as we understand it relies on water, so finding the substance on a moon or planet could be a sign that life might be able to exist there.

Scientists now think that Enceldus harbors an underground ocean.

Enceladus wasn’t the only mysterious moon Cassini helped reveal. Saturn’s huge satellite Titan has also been studied by the long-lasting orbiter.

Cassini’s measurements have shown that Titan has rain, lakes, seas and rivers like Earth, NASA officials said. Unlike Earth, however, Titan is a cold world with seas of liquid methane rather than water.

The Titan-exploring Huygens probe also launched to the Saturn system with Cassini in October 1997.

The European Space Agency’s Huygens robot landed on Titan in 2005 and became the first manmade craft to land on a moon in the outer solar system.

It measured the atmosphere and beamed images of the moon back to Earth.

“The probe’s 2 hour and 27 minute descent revealed Titan to be remarkably like Earth before life evolved, with methane rain, erosion and drainage channels and dry lake beds,” NASA officials said.

“A soup of complex hydrocarbons, including benzene, was found in Titan's atmosphere.”

Saturn's moon Tethys with its prominent Odysseus Crater silently slips behind Saturn's largest moon Titan.

Cassini has also unveiled how Saturn’s rings change over time, and because of its long tenure in the planetary system, the probe has observed seasonal changes taking place on the planet and its moons, according to NASA.

Cassini will continue to beam back data to Earth for a few more years, until 2017 when it is scheduled to intentionally plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, ending its mission.

Hydrocarbon Lakes on Titan

ESA Cassini Huygens: Titan Descent Movie (2005.01.14) - YouTube

This movie was built thanks to the data collected by ESA's Huygens Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on 14 January 2005, during the 147-minutes plunge through Titan's thick orange-brown atmosphere to a soft sandy riverbed.

In 4 minutes 40 seconds, the movie shows what the probe 'saw' within the few hours of the descent and the eventual landing.

At first the Huygens camera just saw haze over the distant surface. The haze started to clear only at about 60 kilometers altitude, making it possible to resolve surface features as large as 100 meters.

Only after landing could the probe's camera resolve little grains of sand millions and millions times smaller than Titan. The movie provides a glimpse on such a huge change of scale.

Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Source: jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08118

ESA Huygens Probe's bounce-landing reveals Titan's surface - YouTube

The Huygens probe, brought to Saturn's moon Titan by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, bounced, slid, and wobbled to rest in the 10 seconds after it touched down on Titan.

The first 10 seconds of Huygens' touchdown on Titan in January 2005 are relived in this animation.

The motion was reconstructed by combining accelerometer data from the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument and the Surface Science Package with photometry data from the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer.

After descending through the thick atmosphere, the probe landed on the moon's surface, creating a hole around 12 cm deep.

It then bounced out onto a flat surface and slid 30-40 cm to its final resting place, before wobbling back and forth at least five times.

Vibrations in the probe's instruments were recorded for nearly 10 seconds after impact.

Credits: ESA--C. Carreau)