NASA plans to explore Titan moon with drones

Dear readers and followers,

NASA has really great plans for space exploration. The US space agency wants to search Saturn's moon Titan for life but they're having trouble coming up with a good way to cover a large territory and obtain samples. For this, they think they may have a good solution: A 22-pound quadcopter that will work from a mothership.

Despite brisk temperatures of -290 degrees F, Saturn's giant Titan moon is of great interest to scientists, thanks to Earth-like geography, hydrocarbon "lakes" and even possible life. Though NASA's Cassini-Huygens probe visited Titan some time ago, the space agency would like to return at some point -- this time with a quadrotor. 

Using the latest drone and sensor tech, it would weigh less than 10kg, deploy from a recharging nuclear "mothership" balloon and acquire high-res images from close to the surface. With the benefit of that reconnaissance, it could land at promising spots, take microscopic photos and scoop up samples to be analyzed later by the mothership. NASA plans to develop the mission concepts further and design the drone in collaboration with AeroVironment.

Stay tuned.

Source

Saturn planet just behind the Moon

Credit image: Colin Legg

North pole of Saturn from Cassini

Credit: +NASA 

Venus, Earth, our Moon, Mars and Saturn's moon Titan

Source: +reddit 

Saturn taken by the spacecraft Cassini for Solstice mission

Credits: +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

Ladder-like Ring around Saturn

Credits: +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

Venus, Mercury and Saturn in 2005 in Chile

Credits: Stephane Guisard

Cassini finds activities on the Saturn's moon, Dione

Dear followers,

The +NASA Cassini spacecraft which explores activities on Dione since 2004 has found some interesting data. The following picture, obtained from Cassini, shows the topography of a mountain known as Janiculum Dorsa on the Saturn's moon, Dione. 

Credit: +NASA 

Scientists have found more evidence for the idea that Dione was likely active in the past. It could still be active now.

Actually, "A picture is emerging that suggests Dione could be a fossil of the wondrous activity Cassini discovered spraying from Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus or perhaps a weaker copycat Enceladus," said Bonnie Buratti of +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who manages the Cassini science team that studies icy satellites. The presence of a subsurface ocean on Dione would boost the astrobiological potential of this once-boring iceball.

Many other little moons in our solar system thought to have a subsurface ocean, such Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa which are among the most geologically active worlds in our solar system.

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Huge hurricane on Saturn, first time in color

The spacecraft Cassini, sent by +NASA  has provided scientists of the +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory  the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of +NASA , the +European Space Agency, ESA and the Italian Space Agency.
High-resolution pictures and video indicated the hurricane's eye is about 1,250 miles wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth.

(Credits: +NASA )

Partial Lunar eclipse tomorrow

The first of the three lunar eclipses of the year will occur tomorrow. All the Earth except North or South America will see it. The best place to see it will be in India and the close countries.

Earth’s darkumbra shadow barely clips the full moon for 27 minutes, causing the third-shortest partial lunar eclipse in the 21st century. There are two more lunar eclipses later this year, but both are penumbra. People will get to see a full-looking moon shining near the golden planet Saturn.

Don't forget to use special glasses to look the Lunar eclipse ;)

You could find more images of Lunar eclipse on the website of Daniel McVey