Questions tagged [cassini]

Question about the Cassini-Huygens mission which sent a probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites.

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Estimate the mass of Saturn based on the given data below

In September 2017, the Cassini 1 mission was nearing its end after 20 years due to fuel shortages. The NASA space probe reached its apoapsis on 12 September at 1:27 AM EDT (time on Saturn) with a ...
mathgirl752's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
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Did Cassini return a photo of Saturn's rings shown from closer to Saturn?

A quote from a book, Perelandra by C.S. Lewis: "no eye looked up from beneath on the Ring of Lurga"; now Lurga is Saturn, and no human eye has been to Saturn, let alone at a lower altitude ...
Joshua's user avatar
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12 votes
1 answer
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How to measure mass of planets' core from orbit

I am told in an astrophysics lecture the following. The mass of Saturn's core was measured by Cassini when it completed its final flyby between the rings and the planet itself. It was also found that ...
zabop's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
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How does Saturn's ring rain fit with the earlier "big empty" results?

In 2017, the results from Cassini's flight through the region between Saturn and the inner edge of the rings were described as the "Big Empty". Nevertheless in 2018, the region was described ...
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23 votes
3 answers
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Help understanding this unsettling image of Titan, Epimetheus, and Saturn's rings?

The NY Times article Saturn’s Rings Are Sculpted by a Crew of Mini-Moons is really interesting and links to the recent paywalled paper in Science Close Cassini flybys of Saturn’s ring moons Pan, ...
uhoh's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
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How old are Janus and Epimetheus?

How old are Janus and Epimetheus, and are they believed to have formed out of a collision? (I think would explain their shared orbit). Not the age of their elements, which should be similar to the ...
userLTK's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
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What does "Active Weather Patterns" mean?

I just read that Cassini discovered titan had "active Weather patterns". What does that mean?
giorgi shengelaia's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
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How can we map masses orbiting the outer Solar System by determining the orbits of planets and smaller objects?

Neptune was discovered 170 years ago with the help of observations of Uranus' orbit. A great demonstration of the scientific principle for its time. Recently, Earth and cis-Lunar based radio ...
LocalFluff's user avatar
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7 votes
1 answer
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Exactly what in Saturn has been located to within 4 km precision?

Saturn has been located with fantastic precision thanks to Cassini and VLBI. The location of the 120,000 km diameter giant planet (when defining the 1 bar pressure level as its surface) is known to ...
LocalFluff's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
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Refraction by Saturn's atmosphere - how dense is it here?

This tweet from CassiniSaturn shows an image of Saturn's rings being optically distorted by the dense atmosphere. It is explained more fully on this page and is available here. The refraction is ...
uhoh's user avatar
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