[meteorite-list] Cassini Spacecraft to Buzz Icy Moon Dione June 16

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:23:42 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201506152323.t5FNNgrB028068_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4623

Saturn Spacecraft to Buzz Icy Moon Dione June 16
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
June 15, 2015

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make a close flyby of Saturn's moon Dione
on June 16, coming within 321 miles (516 kilometers) of the moon's surface.
The spacecraft will make its closest approach to Dione at 1:12 p.m. PDT
(4:12 p.m. EDT) on June 16.

During the flyby, Cassini's cameras and spectrometers will observe terrain
that includes "Eurotas Chasmata," a region first observed 35 years ago
by NASA's Voyager mission as bright, wispy streaks. After the Voyager
encounter, scientists considered the possibility that the streaks were
bright material extruded onto the surface by geologic activity, such as
ice volcanoes. Cassini's close flybys and sharp vision later revealed
the bright streaks to be an intricate network of braided canyons with
bright walls, called linea.

Cassini will also try to detect and determine the composition of any fine
particles being emitted from Dione, which could indicate low-level geologic
activity.

Mission controllers expect images to begin arriving on Earth within a
few days of the encounter.

This flyby will be the fourth targeted encounter with Dione of Cassini's
long mission. Targeted encounters require a propulsion maneuver to precisely
steer the spacecraft toward a desired path above a moon. Cassini's closest-ever
flyby of Dione was in Dec. 2011, at a distance of 60 miles (100 kilometers).
The spacecraft will fly past Dione one more time, on Aug. 17, swooping
within 295 miles (474 kilometers) of the surface.

In late 2015, the spacecraft will depart Saturn's equatorial plane --
where moon flybys occur most frequently -- to begin a year-long setup
of the mission's daring final year. For its grand finale, Cassini will
repeatedly dive through the space between Saturn and its rings.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European
Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about Cassini, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov


Media Contact

Preston Dyches / DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-7013 / 818-393-9011
preston.dyches at jpl.nasa.gov / agle at jpl.nasa.gov

2015-202
Received on Mon 15 Jun 2015 07:23:42 PM PDT