Saturn Up Close

The current issue of Discovery magazine includes an article on the Cassini spacecraft which has been orbiting Saturn for nearly nine years.  During that period it has "phoned home" several thousand high resolution images of this fascinating gas giant and its moons.

Cassini-Huygens launching in 1997.  (NASA image)

The Cassini-Huygens robotic spacecraft was launched Oct. 15, 1997, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  That's just across the Indian River from where my grandparents operated the Brevard Hotel in Cocoa.  As a young kid visiting at Christmas, during the early years of the space program, I would sit out behind the hotel and watch the rockets go up from the Cape.  All too often these early efforts blew up shortly after launch.

The spacecraft and its photo subject.  (NASA image)

In contrast, the Cassini launch was textbook.  After flybys of Earth, Venus, and Jupiter, the spacecraft arrived at Saturn on July 1, 2004.  On Christmas Day that year it sent its "baby," the Huygens lander, down onto the moon Titan.  Cassini's mission was supposed to last four years, but was extended first in 2008, and again in 2010.  As of today, it is 8 years, 7 months, and 22 days into that mission, which will continue until 2017.

Cassini has produced amazing images of Saturn, including one entitled "In Saturn's Shadow — The Pale Blue Dot."  That pale blue dot is earth!  To see this and other Saturn images, go to the spacecraft's web site — www.ciclops.org — and click on the link in the home page text.  Seeing "this fragile earth, our island home" through Saturn's rings is truly fascinating.  We live in a very large neighborhood! •••