More than 1,400 scientists gathered last week to mark the 10th
anniversary of the launch of the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft to Saturn and
discuss the mission's latest discoveries.
Since liftoff on Oct. 15, 1997, aboard a U.S. Air Force
Titan 4B rocket, the mission's scientific instruments powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators
have captured a great deal of new information about Saturn's
rings and moons.
"With Cassini, amazing discoveries have almost become
routine," said Cassini project scientist Dennis Matson of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, who manages Cassini's science activities.
Those discoveries include ice geysers shooting from Saturn's moon
Enceladus and finding that one of Saturn's rings is created from such ice particles.
Cassini will get an even closer look in March 2008 when its third flyby of the
moon takes it
directly into an icy polar geyser. Scientists want to confirm their
suspicions that the geyser is 90 percent water-ice crystals. Ammonia and
methane gas are probably also present there, Matson said.
The Cassini
orbiter deployed the European Space Agency's (ESA) Huygens
probe which parachuted down to the frozen surface of Titan – a moon with lakes
of hydrocarbons and complex chemistry that includes methane
drizzles – on Jan. 14, 2005. Scientists around the world are recreating
conditions on Titan's surface by using information sent back by Huygens.
Cassini has also used an onboard radar instrument to peer through the thick
clouds of Titan.
"For all of us so closely involved in discovering an
Earth-like world, it was worth the long trip. We are now learning about
terrestrial-processes that take place on another world – which is fascinating.
Cassini-Huygens is truly a success story in international cooperation," said Jean-Pierre
Lebreton, ESA Huygens project scientist.
Saturn is still
shrouded in mysteries, but Cassini continues to deliver data well beyond
its mission life of four years.
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