Tag: Titan

The Mysterious, Evolving Island in Titan’s Sea

The Mysterious, Evolving Island in Titan’s Sea

More fascinating observations of Titan’s seas from the Cassini spacecraft operating at Saturn. From NASA.gov: These images from the Radar instrument aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show the evolution of a transient feature in the large hydrocarbon sea named Ligeia Mare on Saturn’s moon Titan. Analysis by Cassini scientists indicates that the bright features, informally known as […]

Posted in: Outer Planets
Titan’s Seas

Titan’s Seas

The Sun Shines on Titan’s Seas : Image NASA/JPL-CalTech/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho The movie Interstellar took the crew of the Endurance to an ocean world with giant, wormhole driven waves, and then a frozen wasteland of a planet which left many audience members looking for a marauding Wampa snow beast. The point of departure for all […]

Posted in: Outer Planets
Cassini Journals: A Shocking Encounter at Hyperion and an Ocean on Mimas

Cassini Journals: A Shocking Encounter at Hyperion and an Ocean on Mimas

A Shocking Encounter at Hyperion:  NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute This week brought two new findings from the Cassini spacecraft in the Saturn system. The first involved data from a September 26, 2005 flyby of Saturn’s bizarrely shaped moon Hyperion. According to new analysis, during the approach, Cassini was struck by a beam of electrons coming from […]

Posted in: Outer Planets
Cassini Finds Strange Feature in Titan’s Sea

Cassini Finds Strange Feature in Titan’s Sea

Three images show an unusual feature in Titan’s sea. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell Note: Yet another in a long series of intriguing findings from the Cassini spacecraft operating in the Saturn system, and another reason to bemoan the lack of any planned follow up to this groundbreaking spacecraft. From JPL News: “NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is monitoring the […]

Posted in: Outer Planets
Cassini Captures Shining Mimas Against the Shadow of Saturn’s Rings

Cassini Captures Shining Mimas Against the Shadow of Saturn’s Rings

Although Innerspace.net tends to focus on Mars as the most inhabitable planet outside Earth, Saturn’s system holds a unique fascination, much of it due to the amazing Cassini space probe. It is also the case because even though it is much further out than Jupiter and its many moons, Saturn’s system does not present the […]

Posted in: Outer Planets
A Decade of Discovery in Saturn’s System: The Great Cassini

A Decade of Discovery in Saturn’s System: The Great Cassini

It is sometimes difficult to attach an adequate number of superlatives to the Cassini probe, which is about to enter its second decade of operations in the Saturn system.  From launching the Huygens lander, to revealing Titan’s hydrocarbon seas and the ice geysers of Enceladus, Cassini has been much more than a probe.  In many […]

Posted in: Outer Planets
Cassini Looks at Saturn’s Moon Dione

Cassini Looks at Saturn’s Moon Dione

With at least 53 confirmed Moons, it’s a little difficult to keep track of everything going on in Saturn’s system, but the amazing Cassini probe which has been on duty there since 2004 is still doing a remarkable job. Overshadowed by methane rich and surprisingly Earth-like Titan, and showy Enceladus, which is jetting ice crystals […]

Posted in: Outer Planets
On Titan: Icebergs Really Could Be Dead Ahead

On Titan: Icebergs Really Could Be Dead Ahead

Source: JPL One of the most promising potential locations for eventual human settlement in the outer solar system is Saturn’s fascinating moon, Titan. Bigger than innermost planet Mercury, half again as large as our own Moon, and second only to Ganymede in total size,  Titan possesses a thick nitrogen atmosphere, which blankets a bizarre frigid landscape  dominated by the hydrocarbons  methane and ethane.  […]

Rivers on Titan : Cassini

Rivers on Titan : Cassini

There are times when the mystery and wonder gradually being revealed in our own solar system borders on intoxicating, and no deep space probe has done a better job of pealing back the layers than Cassini.  It is hard to believe that this mission, launched in 1997 from the same pad now occupied by SpaceX and the Falcon […]

Posted in: Space Science
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