Cassini’s Discoveries at Saturn and the Proposed Cassini Solstice Mission

Details Cassini’s Discoveries at Saturn and the Proposed Cassini Solstice Mission Cassini’s Discoveries at Saturn and the Proposed Cassini Solstice Mission

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufm.p43d1475p&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #P43D-1475

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[5737] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Magnetospheres, [6265] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Planetary Rings, [6275] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Saturn, [6280] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

Understanding of the Saturn system has been greatly enhanced by the Cassini-Huygens mission. Fundamental discoveries have altered our views of Saturn, Titan and the other icy satellites, the rings, and magnetosphere of the system. Key discoveries include: water-rich plumes emanating from the south pole of Enceladus; hints of possible activity on Dione and of rings around Rhea; a methane hydrological cycle on Titan complete with fluvial erosion, lakes, and seas of liquid methane and ethane; non-axisymmetric ring microstructure in all moderate optical depth rings; south polar vortices on Saturn; and a unique magnetosphere that shares characteristics with both Earth’s and Jupiter’s magnetospheres. These new discoveries are directly relevant to current Solar System science goals including: planet and satellite formation processes, formation of gas giants, the nature of organic material, the history of volatiles, habitable zones and processes for life, processes that shape planetary bodies, and evolution of exoplanets. The proposed 7-year Cassini Solstice Mission would address new questions that have arisen during the Cassini Prime and Equinox Missions, and would observe seasonal and temporal change in the Saturn system to prepare for future missions to Saturn, Titan, and Enceladus. The proposed Cassini Solstice Mission would provide new science in three ways. First, it would observe seasonally and temporally dependent processes on Saturn, Titan and other icy satellites, and within the rings and magnetosphere, in a hitherto unobserved seasonal phase from equinox to solstice. Second, it would address new questions that have arisen during the mission thus far, providing qualitatively new measurements (e.g. of Enceladus and Titan) which could not be accommodated in the earlier mission phases. Tthird, it would conduct a close-in mission phase at Saturn that would provide unique science including comparison to the Juno observations at Jupiter.

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