NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has had its last close brush with Saturn’s hazy moon Titan and is now beginning its final set of 22 orbits around the ringed planet. The spacecraft made its 127th and final close approach to Titan on April 21 at 11:08 p.m. PDT (2:08 a.m. EDT on April 22), passing at an […]
While people on earth were going about their business as usual, an event occurred a mere 25,000 miles above us. On Wednesday, September 7th, an asteroid passed close to the earth. 2016 RB1, discovered by astronomers using a 60-inch reflector telescope on the summit of Mount Lemmon, north of Tucson, passed over the south […]
The JunoCam camera aboard NASA’s Juno mission is operational and sending down data after the spacecraft’s July 4 arrival at Jupiter. Juno’s visible-light camera was turned on six days after Juno fired its main engine and placed itself into orbit around the largest planetary inhabitant of our solar system. The first high-resolution images of the […]
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA—There were hugs, “high fives” and handshakes at Juno mission control at Jet Propulsion Laboratory Monday, as the unmanned spacecraft completed its engine burn to enter Jupiter orbit and start its 20-month mission mapping the giant planet. Scientists and engineers in Pasadena, California, felt “a huge sigh of relief, and excitement,” said principal investigator […]