Target 1: Dione
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Target 1: Dione
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Target 3:Chris Ballard
Navigation Engineer
Hi, my name is Chris, and I am a navigation engineer on the Cassini Team.
My job is to help keep the spacecraft on the path that the scientists want to follow.
I think we should look at target number one, Dione, because it has many interesting features which are perfect to be studied with Cassini's cameras.
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Software used by the Cassini science planning team simulates the field of view the cameras on board the Cassini spacecraft can capture at a specific date and time. This is a computer-generated image of Dione as seen by the Cassini spacecraft's Narrow Angle Camera on May 25, 2009. Click on the image for a larger view. |
The leading side of the moon, that is, the side that faces the direction it is traveling in, has a lot of craters on it.
How do you think all those craters ended up on the front of the moon?
Think of it like putting your hand out the window of a car that is driving in the rain. Most of the raindrops are hitting the front of your hand, while the back of your hand stays mostly dry.
This is just like how rocks in space would mostly be hitting the front side of the moon.
One fascinating discovery scientists made was that the back side of the moon also has lots of craters, and since Dione only faces one direction as it orbits Saturn, they think that some intense meteor impacts actually changed the way Dione is oriented.
The first images of Dione taken nearly 30 years ago revealed what appeared to be bright, wispy terrain laced throughout the back side, or trailing hemisphere.
More detailed pictures from the Cassini spacecraft revealed that these were actually ice cliffs created by fractures in the surface.
I say, "Let’s look at Dione to learn more about what made this moon the way it is today!"
