Cassini Begins Transmitting Data From Enceladus Flyby
Shortly after 9:03 p.m. Pacific Time, the Cassini spacecraft began
sending data to Earth following a close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
During closest approach, Cassini successfully passed only 50 kilometers
(30 miles) from the surface of the tiny moon.
Cassini's signal was picked up by the Deep Space Network station in
Canberra, Australia, and relayed to the Cassini mission control at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"We are happy to report that Cassini's begun sending data home," said
Julie Webster, Cassini team chief at JPL. "The downlink will continue
through the night and into tomorrow morning.”
Closest approach occurred at approximately 3:21 p.m. PDT, while Cassini
was traveling at a swift 17.7 kilometers per second (40,000 miles per hour)
relative to Enceladus.
During the flyby, Cassini focused its cameras and other remote sensing
instruments on Enceladus with an emphasis on the moon's south pole where
parallel stripes or fissures dubbed "tiger stripes" line the region.
That area is of particular interest because geysers of water-ice and
vapor jet out of the fissures and supply material to Saturn's E-ring.
Scientists hope to learn more about the fissures and whether liquid water
is indeed the engine powering the geysers.
"There is a lot of anticipation and excitement about what today's flyby
might reveal" said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist, also of JPL.
"Over the next few days and weeks, the Cassini teams will be analyzing the
photos and other data to tease out new clues about this tiny, active world."
Two more Enceladus flybys are planned for October. The first of those will cut
Monday's flyby distance in half and bring the spacecraft to a remarkable 25
kilometers (16 miles) from the surface. Enceladus measures about 500 kilometers
(310 miles) in diameter--just one-seventh the diameter of Earth's moon.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the Cassini-Huygens mission
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Cassini orbiter was designed,
developed and assembled at JPL.
For images, videos and a mission blog on the flyby, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini
Raw (unprocessed) images are available at:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.