The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn



Travel to Saturn





  Launch with a Titan Rocket


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  6.7m high, 5.82 tonnes!


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The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft is one
of the largest, heaviest and most complex
interplanetary spacecraft ever built.






  Orbit to Saturn


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  Animation caption






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The mission






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  The spacecraft


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  The spacecraft


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Cassini-Huygens is designed to shed light on many of the unsolved mysteries
arising from previous observations, for details see the mission objectives.





The rings



  Voyager's view


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  Rings and moons


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  Cassini gazing down
  at Saturn's rings


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  Cassini's view


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  In Saturn's Shadow


  Full resolution image
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  The rings in their entirety


  Full resolution image
  Rings with Saturn removed
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How thin are the rings?







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  Movie caption (0:38)




The moons





  B-ring, Mimas and Prometheus


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  F-ring and Mimas (8.8 · 106 km)


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  Janus and Enceladus (26.3 · 106 km)


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  F-ring, Prometheus, Pandora and Janus
  (
8 · 106 km)


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  Moons of Saturn


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New discoveries






  New ring discovered by Cassini


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  Clumps in F-ring (2 hours apart)


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  Irregularities in F-ring (157'000 km)


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  Density wave in A-ring (6.8 · 106 km)


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  Two waves in the A-ring


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Titan




  Titan Flyby (16 images mosaic)


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  Separation and descent on Titan


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  Images taken during descent


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  360 degree panorama


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  River channels


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  Huygens instruments during descent


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  Aerial views of Titan around
  Huygens landing site


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  First image of
  Titan's surface


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  Huygens on Titan:
  one year after


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  Liquid lakes on Titan


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  Another view of liquid lakes
  on Titan (Credit: NASA/JPL)

  Swaths of Titan's surface as
  seen by Cassini's radar on
  four Titan passes (movie)


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Enceladus



 


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Original video (3:11) taken from: http://www.solarviews.com/cap/vss/VSS00010.htm .
Credit: NASA/JPL





Cassini-Huygens: the movie







  Summary movie (.mov, italian version)


  Movie caption (30:32)
  ringworld.wmv (108 MB)





background photo: Saturn Rings viewed from Cassini (Credit: NASA and ESA)
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06175