Cassini-Huygens Reaches Orbit Around Saturn

Mick Ohrberg writes "The probe Cassini-Huygens is now officially in orbit around Saturn. Last nights' retro-burn was completed according to plan, down to the second, which in and of itself is an amazing feat, considering all data received is 1h24m old, as well as 900 million miles away. I must say, it was fairly exciting to watch the webcast, and see the signal fade behind the A-ring, and all but disappear behind the B-ring - all in (somewhat delayed) real-time. The SOI (Saturn Orbit Insertion) also saw Cassini-Huygens whisk by Saturn at around 68,000 mph at an altitude of about 12,000 miles from the cloud tops - the closest to the gas giant the probe will ever be during its planned 4-year mission, for instance the much awaited Huygens mission to Titan."

Comments

typo title

[bluethundr]

The NAME, I say I say the NAME, son is Christiaan Huygens. Associate of the Protestant Defender and natural philosopher.

Christiaan Huygens

[rastakid]

Just like Huygens I'm Dutch, and thus I was taught a lot about him in school during the physics hours.
The biggest thing Huygens brought the physica is the 'Huygens source'. A simplified explanation: A Huygens source starts sending out sound (air vibration) because the source itself got vibrated by another source. So, a Huygens source doesn't 'create' sound, but simply relays it.

Of course this is really simplified and in reality it's fairly more complex.

Re:delays

[Bob 4knee]

...some sort of technology that allowed some independent operation on the part of the probe might be a valuable investment for the next go-round.

It's in there this time. See:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/07/01/cassini.o rbit/index.html

NASA also designed Cassini to be independent because the time lag of one hour and 24 minutes -- the time for light to travel 930 million miles from Saturn to Earth -- means controllers on Earth cannot immediately react to unexpected problems.

Instead, Cassini operates on its own.

"The spacecraft has been programmed to continue even in the event of an emergency," said Mitchell in a statement. "We don't want Cassini to call home if a problem arises, we want it to keep going."

Re:Hey..?

[SB9876]

While the risk of the Pu RTGs breaking open if Cassini had hit the Earth on those slingshot maneuvers was non-zero, the risk to human health was non-existant. The stupid - 'toxic enough to kill every human on Earth' line was complete BS.

For one, it's know that at least 3 RTGs have burned up on reentry, one US and two USSR. We didn't all die.

Second, while Plutonium is toxic, it's not that bad - caffeine has a lower fatal dose than Plutonium.

Re:I'm not obsessed by size or anything

[Iron Sun]

Trollish , if partially true. Saturn sans rings is probably, though debatably, marginally less interesting than Jupiter. Stuff like the uncertainty over the length of its day shows that it has some surprises in store, though.

But Titan sure has to be the most interesting object in the Solar System at the moment, if only because it's the biggest bit of unexplored surface left. The good probability of extraterrestrial oceans is also pretty damn cool. Go, Huygens!

Re:I'm not obsessed by size or anything

[amightywind]

Next to the earth, Titan may be the most chemically complex body in the solar system. It remains to be seen if it geologically complex. I have a feeling the real show will start tomorrow with the first Titan flyby. Cassini should be able to see/detect liquid hydrocarbons if they are there with IR imaging, IR spectrascopy and radar. A major world is about to be revealed with some of the best instruments ever flown.

Waves in the Rings?

[S_Dub]

Can anyone explain the seemingly horizontal waves that are running through all of the rings? They seem to be fairly uniform and direction and size. However, the orientation does not seem to be radial from the planet itself or any other object... Any conjecture out there as to what has caused this? They almost seem like an artifact in the images themselves.

Also, is anyone else a little disappointed that these are the best images we're going to get of the rings or are there going to be better pictures in the future? This is the closest the spacecraft is going to get to the rings, yet I really was hoping to see the individual components of the rings themselves. I've seen the intro to Voyager, and I wanted to see tumbling boulders...