Saturn And Its System

The Saturn System Through The Eyes Of Cassini is printed in full-color on 70-pound paper. The Cassini-Huygens mission has revolutionized our knowledge of the Saturn system and revealed surprising places in the solar system where life could potentially gain a foothold--bodies we call ocean worlds. Since its arrival in 2004, Cassini-Huygens has been nothing short of a discovery machine, captivating us with data and images never before obtained with such detail and clarity. Cassini taught us that Saturn is a far cry from a tranquil lone planet with delicate rings. Now, we know more about Saturn's chaotic, active, and powerful rings, and the storms that rage beneath. Images and data from Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus hint at the possibility of life never before suspected. The rings of Saturn, its moons, and the planet itself offer irresistible and inexhaustible subjects for intense study. As the Cassini mission comes to a dramatic end with a fateful plunge into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017, scientists are already dreaming of going back for further study.

With active geysers coating its surface with dazzlingly bright ice crystals, Saturn’s large moon Enceladus is one of the most enigmatic worlds in our solar system. Underlying this activity are numerous further discoveries by the Cassini spacecraft, tantalizing us with evidence that Enceladus harbors a subsurface ocean of liquid water. Enceladus is thus newly realized as a forefront candidate among potentially habitable ocean worlds in our own solar system, although it is only one of a family of icy moons orbiting the giant ringed planet, each with its own story. As a new volume in the Space Science Series, Enceladus and the Icy Moons of Saturn brings together nearly eighty of the world’s top experts writing more than twenty chapters to set the foundation for what we currently understand, while building the framework for the highest-priority questions to be addressed through ongoing spacecraft exploration. Topics include the physics and processes driving the geologic and geophysical phenomena of icy worlds, including, but not limited to, ring-moon interactions, interior melting due to tidal heating, ejection and reaccretion of vapor and particulates, ice tectonics, and cryovolcanism. By contextualizing each topic within the profusion of puzzles beckoning from among Saturn’s many dozen moons, Enceladus and the Icy Moons of Saturn synthesizes planetary processes on a broad scale to inform and propel both seasoned researchers and students toward achieving new advances in the coming decade and beyond.

Saturn is back in the news! The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft, a joint venture by NASA and the European Space Agency, is on its way to Saturn, where it will arrive in July 2004. During 2005 it will explore beneath the clouds of Titan, Saturn's largest moon and potential home for extraterrestrial life. Written by an established space historian and experienced author, Mission To Saturn - Cassini and the Huygens Probe is an up-to-date and timely review of our knowledge of Saturn and its enigmatic moon, Titan, on which the Huygens probe will land to search for prebiotic chemistry or even life. It explains how the mission was planned, how it will operate and, as the spacecraft nears its target, puts into context the discoveries that are sure to follow from this once-in-a-lifetime mission.

*Brings the story of the Cassini-Huygens mission and their joint exploration of the Saturnian system right up to date. *Combines a review of previous knowledge of Saturn, its rings and moons, including Titan, with new spacecraft results in one handy volume. *Provides the latest and most spectacular images, which will never have appeared before in book form. *Gives a context to enable the reader to more easily appreciate the stream of discoveries that will be made by the Cassini-Huygens mission. *Tells the exciting story of the Huygens spacecraft’s journey to the surface of Titan.

A detailed overview of Saturn's formation, evolution and structure written by eminent planetary scientists involved in the Cassini Orbiter mission.

Cassini-Huygens was the most ambitious and successful space journey ever launched to the outer Solar System. This book examines all aspects of the journey: its conception and planning; the lengthy political processes needed to make it a reality; the engineering and development required to build the spacecraft; its 2.2-billion mile journey from Earth to the Ringed Planet and the amazing discoveries from the mission. The author traces how the visions of a few brilliant scientists matured, gained popularity and eventually became a reality. Innovative technical leaps were necessary to assemble such a multifaceted spacecraft and reliably operate it while it orbited a planet so far from our own. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft design evolved from other deep space efforts, most notably the Galileo mission to Jupiter, enabling the voluminous, paradigm-shifting scientific data collected by the spacecraft. Some of these discoveries are absolute gems. A small satellite that scientists once thought of as a dead piece of rock turned out to contain a warm underground sea that could conceivably harbor life. And we now know that hiding under the mist of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is a world with lakes, fluvial channels, and dunes hauntingly reminiscent of those on our own planet, except that on Titan, it’s not water that fills those lakes but hydrocarbons. These and other breakthroughs illustrate why the Cassini-Huygens mission will be remembered as one of greatest voyages of discovery ever made.