Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001
The novel I’m shopping around begins on the moon of a ringed gas giant. You’d better believe that in the next draft, that moon is going to have gorgeous arcs like the ones the Cassini spacecraft imaging team recently found gracing Saturn’s moons Anthe and Methone.
We interrupt our normal broadcasting to bring you… some space pr0n.
If you’re getting a bit worn down by the trouble and strife here on Earth (and who could blame you?), maybe you’ll get some refreshing respite from five minutes gawping at the landscape of the Saturnine moon Enceladus as captured by the Cassini probe:
The above image [courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute] was taken from less than a thousand miles above Enceladus’ surface. Just think - in the space of a month we’ve confirmed water on Mars and seen the surface of a distant moon that may also have the potential to harbour life.
OK, back to the grind. Think about it too long, and it gets hard to come back to Earth…
The Cassini-Huygens probe was launched on October 15, 2007 1997 (Corrected, thanks Adam!), with the a mission to study the planet Saturn and its moons. By any measure this has been an extremely successful endeavor. The most recent images from the spacecraft have shown giant hydrocarbon lakes on the moon Titan and jets of fine, icy particles spraying from the moon Enceladus.
The probe took seven years to reach Saturn. Since then, the robot spacecraft has been delivering stunning photographs of the ringed planet and its fantastic family of moons. “The launch was the start of one of space exploration’s great adventures and we didn’t really know what we would find,” said Professor Andrew Coates, of University College London, who heads one of the UK teams involved in Cassini. “Now we are reaping the rewards of nearly 20 years’ work on the mission and the science continues to be amazing.”
