Cassini Enceladus Flyby & Journey to Mars at IAC on This Week @NASA – October 16, 2015 HD

• published: 16 Oct 2015
• views: 31

more at: http://scitech.quickfound.net/astro/nasa_news.html "Published on Oct 16, 2015 - During meetings and public events at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Oct. 12-16 in Jerusalem, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and several other NASA officials highlighted the agency’s recently released plan to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030’s. They also emphasized the need for international partnerships and cooperation to make a mission of this magnitude a reality, the importance of harnessing enthusiasm for space exploration and the need to encourage young people to develop the skills we’ll need for the Journey to Mars. Also, New American record in space, Flyby of Saturnian moon, Next launch for Cygnus, Access to space for small satellites and more! JPL Open House is a big draw." Public domain film from NASA. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus Enceladus (pronounced /ɛnˈsɛlədəs/) is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It is only 500 kilometers (310 mi) in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, reflecting almost all the sunlight that strikes it and making its surface temperature at noon reach only −198 °C. Enceladus has a wide range of surface features, ranging from old, heavily cratered regions to young, tectonically deformed terrains that formed as recently as 100 million years ago, despite its small size. Enceladus was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel, but little was known about it until the two Voyager spacecraft passed nearby in the early 1980s. In 2005, the Cassini spacecraft started multiple close flybys of Enceladus, revealing its surface and environment in greater detail. In particular, Cassini discovered a water-rich plume venting from the south polar region of Enceladus. Cryovolcanoes near the south pole shoot geyser-like jets of water vapor, other volatiles, and solid material, including sodium chloride crystals and ice particles, into space, totaling approximately 200 kilograms (440 lb) per second. Over 100 geysers have been identified. Some of the water vapor falls back as "snow"; the rest escapes, and supplies most of the material making up Saturn's E ring. According to NASA scientists, the plumes at Enceladus are similar in composition to comets. In 2014, NASA reported that Cassini found evidence for a large south polar subsurface ocean of liquid water within Enceladus with a thickness of around 10 km. These geyser observations, along with the finding of escaping internal heat and very few (if any) impact craters in the south polar region, show that Enceladus is geologically active today. Enceladus is, like many satellites in the extensive systems of giant planets, trapped in an orbital resonance. Its resonance with Dione excites its orbital eccentricity, which tidal forces damp, resulting in tidal heating of its interior, and offering a possible explanation for the geological activity... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini–Huygens Cassini–Huygens is an unmanned spacecraft sent to the planet Saturn. It is a flagship-class NASA–ESA–ASI robotic spacecraft. Cassini is the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter orbit, and its mission is ongoing as of 2015. It has studied the planet and its many natural satellites since arriving there in 2004. Development started in the 1980s. Its design includes a Saturn orbiter, and a lander for the moon Titan. The lander, called Huygens, landed on Titan in 2005. The two-part spacecraft is named after astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens. The spacecraft launched on October 15, 1997 aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur and entered orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004, after an interplanetary voyage that included flybys of Earth, Venus, and Jupiter. On December 25, 2004, Huygens separated from the orbiter and reached Saturn's moon Titan on January 14, 2005. It entered Titan's atmosphere and descended to the surface. It successfully returned data to Earth, using the orbiter as a relay. This was the first landing ever accomplished in the outer Solar System...