Astronomy on MSN1d
Do Saturn’s rings cast shadows?
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017, took many dramatic images of the rings’ shadows on Saturn.
A planet on the edge: are Saturn’s rings older than they look?
Saturn’s rings are an arresting sight even through modest telescopes. The planet is made mostly of hydrogen and helium whereas the rings are billions of pieces of mostly bright-white water ice and ...
Scientists make plans to keep spacefarers from contaminating other worlds
Interplanetary contamination risks from space missions and strategies to mitigate them, including the importance of ...
Mashable2d
Earth sends Cassini a whole lot of love after the mission comes to a bittersweet end
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How space missions make discoveries on the way to their main destinations
To get somewhere in outer space, you can’t exactly drive in a straight line. Orbits are tricky things, and sending a probe to ...
Spacefarers may contaminate other worlds—but scientists have plans to keep the cosmos clean
In his inauguration speech in January, United States President Donald Trump declared the US would "plant the stars and ...
Labroots6d
Understanding Titan's Interior and History Through Tidal Friction
What can a moon’s tidal friction teach us about its formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Science ...
PBS17d
The Bennu asteroid reveals clues to how the building blocks of life on Earth may have been seeded
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned from space with a sample of an asteroid named Bennu and scientists got to dive into a tale of rock, ice and water that hints at how life could have formed on Earth.
Nature26d
Cassini Spacecraft Attitude Control and Navigation
The Cassini spacecraft, which explored Saturn and its moons from 2004 to 2017, relied heavily on sophisticated attitude control and navigation systems to achieve its scientific objectives.
6 breathtaking images of Saturn shared by NASA
A startling silhouette of Saturn is created in this Cassini spacecraft portrait. A kingly crescent Saturn rests on the right of this Cassini spacecraft portrait while the moon Mimas appears above the ...