Saturn and Titan from Cassini
Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
Posted on 03/24/2008 2:12:30 PM PDT by sig226
Explanation: Spectacular vistas of Saturn and its moon continue to be recorded by the Cassini spacecraft. Launched from Earth in 1997, robotic Cassini entered orbit around Saturn in 2004 and has revolutionized much of humanity's knowledge of Saturn, its expansive and complex rings, and it many old and battered moons. Soon after reaching Saturn, Cassini released the Huygen's probe which landed on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and send back unprecedented pictures from below Titan's opaque cloud decks. Recent radar images of Titan from Cassini indicate flat regions that are likely lakes of liquid methane, indicating a complex weather system where it likely rains chemicals similar to gasoline. Pictured above, magnificent Saturn and enigmatic Titan were imaged together in true color by Cassini earlier this year.
It’s quite a ways from here to putting astronauts out there but the Orion flight tests begin this year.
Spacedaily.com
The 90-second flight will not leave Earth’s atmosphere, but it will be an important first step toward demonstrating how NASA intends to build safety into its next generation of spacecraft, including the Ares I and V rockets and the Orion crew capsule.
The first in a series of unmanned abort tests, known as Pad Abort-1 or PA-1, is scheduled for late 2008 at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
Be great to see the new hardware.
Anyone have any recent news on the latter?
spacedaily.com
“There is no desire to recreate the Apollo hardware, we can do much better today, but rather we want to use the experiences of the Apollo era to guide and focus attention to solving basic problems with new technologies. What worked and what didn’t, what would the Apollo crew do differently, and how have our goals for lunar exploration changed.”
Awesome!
Let's hope that the NASA management culture is all new, then.
The beauties of the universe.
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