Articles

Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

Cassini's view from the backside of Saturn

Over time, Cassini's orbit apoapsis—the point on the orbit that is farthest from Saturn—has been shifting slowly toward Saturn's night side. Lately, this point of view has resulted in some truly lovely photos of the planet.

They released the entire Cassini RADAR swath across Xanadu!

Following immediately on the heels of the release of the

Cassini's T7 RADAR view of southern Titan; northern swath coming soon

Cassini's T7 flyby of Titan occurred on September 7, 2005. They've now released the full swath of RADAR image data to the Planetary Data System; here it is for your enjoyment.

Blink comparison between ISS and RADAR views of Sinlap

The official publication on the second Titan RADAR swath is out

Today Nature published an article titled

Xanadu: Rivers flowed onto a sunless sea

Cassini RADAR: Another Flyby, Another Completely Different View of Titan

OK, I finally got a story written about the latest and greatest of the Cassini RADAR data based upon a conversation I had with with Ralph Lorenz late last week.

Global color view of Titan with a polar hood (7 December 2011)

Cassini RADAR images of the surface of Titan

Since the last Titan flyby on April 30, the Cassini RADAR team has been releasing quite a large number of pieces of the swath to the Web.

A play-by-play of the Cassini scare on Mayday

Last week's Cassini Significant Events Report included a detailed play-by-play of the frightening morning of Mayday. I thought it was a very interesting read on how a mission deals with an

OPAG, Day 1: Cassini and Juno status

The Outer Planets Assessment Group opened with the status of two of the three actual outer planets missions, Cassini and Juno.

How much data has Cassini returned to Earth?

Since January 1, 2004—the beginning of the Saturn phase of the mission—Cassini has radioed almost 139 Gigabytes of science data to Earth.

Iapetus as seen from Cassini on March 30, 2006

Updated Cassini tour table

Cassini planner Dave Seal gave me a newly updated list of times and dates for Cassini's ongoing tour of the Saturn system, so I went through and compared my table to his and made updates to flyby distances.

Global Saturnshine view of Enceladus in color

LPSC: Wednesday afternoon: Cassini at Enceladus

So after those two rover talks I skipped over to the other large room to listen to what the Cassini science teams had to say about Enceladus.

LPSC, Wednesday morning: Titan

This morning at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference began with Titan, and then later in the morning I had to choose between skipping Titan and going over to rover sessions, or staying with Titan. I elected to stay with Titan.

Half-phase Enceladus in color, 7 April 2010

The hubbub about Enceladus

I just posted a very brief story about all of the press releases that have been whizzing around today about the possibility of liquid water on Enceladus.

Cassini is wrapping up another Titan flyby

This one is

The Orbital Dance of Epimetheus and Janus

Saturn is surrounded by a crowded family of rings and moons, and two of those moons -- Epimetheus and Janus -- orbit Saturn so close together that it seems as though their different orbital speeds should make them crash into each other.