Cassini Alters Path. Phoebe Now In Sight!

Anonymous Explorer writes "This week the Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft finally entered the Saturn system and made its first main-engine burn in five years in preparation of for the Phoebe flyby. This long journey has been one filled with much promise and peril. Launched in 1997, Cassini is expected to have a rendezvous with the moon Phoebe on June 11. For those of us who are lazy, that's just a tad under two weeks away. After the Phoebe flyby, it's on to the ringed planet, with an anticipated July 1 ground orbit insertion. The ESA's Huygens probe will descend into the atmosphere of Titan a few months after Cassini is inserted into orbit. This mission promises to be one that brings a very psychedelic and beautiful area of our solar system into clearer focus. This multinational mission is one the most ambitious scientific explorations yet undertaken and promises some truly otherworldly images in the near future. With 31 moons/natural satellites thus far discovered orbiting Saturn, there should be a lot to keep us occupied. Anyone else excited about the journey to a ringed world? Lets all enjoy this ride. It promises to be a unique one as much as for the scenery as for the science. Informal discussion regarding the Cassini-Huygens mission can be found at #cassini on irc.freenode.net."

Comments

Beauty is important

[Tri0de]

IMHO quality images do more to create and maintain public enthusiasm for space exploration than all the statistics in the world about the benefits of the space program; far too many geeks and/or scientists underestimate and underutilize the best of all marketing tools we have for getting funding and support for the space program. I hope they don't forget about the value of a pretty picture.