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Spacecraft to Fly Through Geyser Plumes On Saturn Moon
Riding with Robots writes "Today the robotic Saturn probe Cassini will make its closest buzz ever over the surface of the enigmatic ice moon Enceladus, whose surprising giant water geysers hint at a hidden ocean of liquid water. The spacecraft will fly right through the tops of the geyser plumes in order to sample the material that originated beneath the surface. NASA is offering a video, interactive guide and image gallery in advance of the event."
I'd think they'd be happy to make such a groundbreaking discovery as bugs on Saturn's moon.
I don't think NASA would put Cassini into any significant danger, considering that the probe is still doing a lot of good work. But think of the science being done here! This is why we should be putting more money into our robotic missions. We don't even need to qualify them by saying they can do some things more efficiently than humans, they can do things right NOW that we meatbags have no chance of doing for at LEAST another century!
It should be noted, it also has a mass spectrometer. While this can't identify whether a given particle is dust or ice, I believe it can determine the ratio, so while measuring density on the cosmic dust analyzer, they can make a good guess how much of it is water and how much is dust based on the results from the spectrometer.
And furthermore, Cassini will fly a mere 32 miles over the surface of Enceladeus. Considering the detail visible from 2600+ miles away on a pass several years ago, there should be a couple really great images result from this pass.
It's rather amazing to think that NASA can successfully fly this spacecraft within 32 miles of an object 300 miles in diameter, while moving at 32,000 mph in an elliptical orbit that carries it over 1 million miles away from Saturn at the extreme, with very limited manuevering fuel. Go Cassini!
Well that's cool, but more importantly, will NASA be offering the same sort of media of the actual event?
I have to imagine those pictures would be much more interesting.