Mission uncovers news of Saturn’s rings

Linda J. Spilker, a project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, grins when she talks about the discoveries made by the Hyugens probe as it nears its sixth year on the surface of Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.

“It’s just totally amazing,” she said, referring to the probe’s early exploration of Titan. “Here are some of these pictures coming back, and they’re showing what looks like we’re landing in, perhaps, a streambed or something. You see these pebbles, rounded smooth pebbles, smoothed by fluid, and just looking so much like the Earth. I think that was the most startling thing.”

Called the Cassini Equinox Mission, the project consists of two parts: Cassini and the European-built Hyugens probe. It is slated to continue until 2017 after NASA secured an additional $60 million per year, Spilker said.

Cassini’s primary mission is to explore Saturn, its rings and its natural satellites, in particular Titan and Enceladus.

The name of the mission reflects the shifting of sunlight from south to north on Saturn, which has caused visible changes in the atmosphere, according to JPL scientists.

Spilker’s main duties are coordinating with all of the scientists involved in the $3.26-billion project in order to maximize the scientific return of the mission, she said. She has worked on Cassini since it was launched in 1998.

Currently in orbit around Saturn, Cassini has uncovered the fact that Saturn’s rings are nothing short of what JPL scientists have called a “Saturnian roller derby.”

The discovery was featured in one of two papers published last week by NASA scientist Jeff Cuzzi of the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

The second paper, written by Tamas Gombosi, a member of Cassini’s scientific team working at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, highlighted atmospheric discoveries made by the Cassini probe.

The study of Saturn’s rings is important, Spilker said, because the research provides an indication of how planets may have formed in the solar system, adding to the idea that the solar system Earth resides in was formed from a disc of gas and dust.