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A propitious vast fixing will concede NASAs Cassinispacecraft to pitch up close to dual of Saturns moons backtoback this week.
The examine is scheduled to have a flyby of Titan, Saturn"slargest moon, on Monday. Then in the early hours of Wednesday Cassini will makea close proceed to the mediumsized icymoon Dione.
The special fixing of the moons at this time meansthat the booster should not have to have any maneuvers in in between to adjustcourse.
The Titan flyby will take Cassini to inside of about 4,700miles (7,500 kilometers) of the moons surface. Though the qualification has beencloser on past swings nearby this appealing body, this time the somewhat widerview will concede Cassinis cameras to glance at Titan"shazeshrouded aspect for a longer time. Scientists goal the probewill be means to constraint highresolution cinema of dual dim regions around theequator, called Belet and Senkyo, that crop up to sputter with silt dunes.
On Wednesday Cassini will have the closest proceed everto Dione, plunging to inside of about 300 miles (500 km) of the moons surface. Itwill be the spacecrafts second flyby of this moon, that is less important thanits siblings Titan and icecovered Enceladus.
Based on the initial Cassini flyby of Dione in October2005, and interpretation taken progressing by the Voyager spacecraft, scientists think themoon could be promulgation out wisps of charged particles in to the captivating fieldaround Saturn and potentially exhaling a disband plume that contributes materialto one of the planets rings.
Dione wouldnt be the usually Saturnian moon with a plume:Enceladus is important for the geysers full of H2O fog that fire off thesurface. But Diones plume would expected be subtler and furnish less materialthan those on Enceladus, that have been dubbed ColdFaithful.
Cassini will make use of onboard instruments that measuremagnetic fields and mass, electrical charges and densities of atomic particleson Dione to poke for signs of activity.
The Cassini orbiter was launched in 1997 as piece of the CassiniHuygensmission, a corner plan of NASA, the European Space Agency and the ItalianSpace Agency. Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004, and was slated fordecommissioning in Sep of this year, but was not long ago postulated a lifeextension by 2017.
Vote Now! Cassinis Greatest Hits: Images of Saturn CanLife on Titan Thrive Without Water? Video Cassini at Saturn: Four Years of Discovery| _______________________ |
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