The Cassini Mission

Image of the moon Dione

The Cassini mission was launched all the way back in 1997 with the sole purpose of broadening our knowledge of the ringed planet Saturn. It arrived at the Saturnian system in 2004, after a seven-year long planetary cruise. The Cassini mission included the Cassini spacecraft, and the Huygens lander, which was deployed onto the surface of Titan on January 14, 2005. 

Dione’s Surface

The Cassini mission has made numerous flybys of Saturn and its moons, It has vastly enhanced our knowledge of the moon Enceladus, which has geysers in its Southern pole. The mission has also discovered more rings as well as subtle storms in the North and South poles of Saturn, called “Hexagonal Storms” because of their shape. The Huygens lander returned stunning images of the surface of Titan, even though an electrical failure had greatly reduced the amount of data received back on Earth. 

Dione as Cassini approached it

Titan was shown to be a world very much like our own. The atmospheric pressure on the surface was as much as at the bottom of a swimming pool here on Earth. Lakes and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons was also discovered, along with rainfall patterns and rocks made of water ice. The composition of Titan’s atmosphere is mainly Nitrogen and Methane. In fact, there is so much methane on Titan that if you light a match there, the entire moon would erupt in flames. 


Enceladus was shown to be a weird little moon. This world, which was considered dead and inactive prior to the mission, has geysers which release water vapor into the air and is the source for Saturn’s vast E-ring. It is hypothesized that there might be an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface. Enceladus is super reflective; it has a really high surface albedo due to its reflective surface, making it very bright. 

Saturn and Titan

That’s not all. The Cassini mission also discovered signs of rings around the moon Rhea, the second largest moon in the Saturnian system; though a dwarf compared to Titan. Its primary mission was to end in 2010, but it was extended to 2017. This extended phase is referred to as the Cassini Solstice mission. 

Hexagonal Storm on Saturn

Recently, the Cassini spacecraft carried out its final flyby of the moon Dione, one of the larger moons of Saturn. It returned stunning images as always, and shall continue to enhance our knowledge of the crown jewel of the Solar System for the days to come. Another fact of the Cassini mission is that it took 7 years for it to reach Saturn, because almost all of the velocity of the spacecraft was supplied by gravitational boosts from Venus, Earth and Jupiter. So, it had to take a longer course, which increased the time it required to reach Saturn.