Cassini-Huygens Latest

Before Darkness Falls: Cassini to Scan Enceladus on Winter's Cusp

On Nov. 21 Cassini will again fly by Enceladus for a last peek at the intriguing ''tiger stripes'' before winter darkness blankets the area.

Cassini?s Big Sky: The View from the Center of Our Solar System

Cassini recently revealed new data that appeared to overturn the decades-old belief that our solar system resembled a comet in shape.

Scene Seen in the Near-Infrared

The Cassini spacecraft's camera looks in near-infrared light at a dramatic view of Saturn, its ringplane and the shadows of a couple of its moons.

Dr. Amanda Hendrix and the Latest on Enceladus

I recently sat down with Dr. Amanda Hendrix, a science team member for the Ultra-Violet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) instrument on Cassini.

Before Darkness Falls: Cassini to Scan Enceladus on Winter's Cusp

Cassini will fly by Enceladus this weekend for a last peek at the intriguing ''tiger stripes'' before winter darkness blankets the area for several years. Scientists are particularly interested in the tiger stripes, which are fissures in the south polar region, because they spew jets of water vapor and other particles hundreds of kilometers, or miles, from the surface.

Cassini?s Big Sky: The View from the Center of Our Solar System

When NASA's Cassini spacecraft began orbiting Saturn five years ago, a dozen highly-tuned science instruments set to work surveying, sniffing, analyzing and scrutinizing the Saturnian system. But Cassini recently revealed new data that appeared to overturn the decades-old belief that our solar system resembled a comet in shape as it moves through the interstellar medium.

Scene Seen in the Near-Infrared

The Cassini spacecraft's camera looks in near-infrared light at a dramatic view of Saturn, its ringplane and the shadows of a couple of its moons. The large shadow south of the equator is that of the moon Tethys. The small shadow near the limb of the planet, north of the equator, is the shadow of the moon Mimas.

Dr. Amanda Hendrix and the Latest on Enceladus

I recently sat down with Dr. Amanda Hendrix, a science team member for the Ultra-Violet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) instrument on Cassini. Her specialty is icy satellites of the outer planets, so this November with twin Enceladus flybys must seem like an early holiday present for her and her team. Dr. Hendrix obtained her PhD studying ultraviolet observations of Earth?s moon and the main-belt asteroids Gaspra and Ida, all using data from the Galileo spacecraft en route to Jupiter.

Meet the U.S. contest winners

The eighth edition of the Cassini Scientist for a Day contest is complete. Congratulations to the winners of our contest. Inside these pages, meet the authors whose essays were judged best in the country as reviewed by Cassini team members. Then look behind the scenes at their entries, and see what it took to come out on top. International contests had later deadlines, and are evaluating their entries.