"Mission Accomplished, but New Questions Await!"

That's what NASA is announcing about their Cassini mission. Today, on June 30, Cassini is ending its primary mission, lasting for four years. But Cassini is not done with Saturn and its moons. There is still much too left to learn about Saturn, and the primary mission was just the start.

Now, Cassini starts a new journey, with a new two-year mission. This extended mission, called the Cassini Equinox Mission, was approved in April. After Cassini unleashed new information about Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus, these two moons became the prime targets for te extended mission. The mission will also focus on the seasonal effects on Titan and Saturn, and looking and analyzing the geometry of the rings of Saturn during the Saturn equinox in August 2009, when sunlight will pass directly through the plane of the the rings.

Find out more about Cassini at NASA and JPL.

Image from NASA/JPL.

Phoenix's Microscope Receives First Sample

After 28 Sols, or Martian days, the latest images beamed back to NASA from Phoenix, like the one above, show that the lander is continuing to do its job successfully on Mars. Phoenix's robotic arm, in the picture on the top right corner, has just recently picked up a small amount of soil from the Martian ground. Very carefully and gently, the arm sprinkled some of this soil onto the delivery port of the Optical Microscope which is fitted on the Phoenix lander.

The robotic arm is right now in an up position to hold the remaining soil. This soil may be later delivered to the Wet Chemistry Lab or the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer. The researchers want the same type of soil sample to be delivered to all three instruments and analyzed so the findings from each instrument can be compared with those of the others.

Image from NASA.

Phoenix Discovers Ice

The animation at right displays the finding of ice on Mars by Phoenix. As the previous posts about Phoenix on this blog show, Phoenix's mission was to find water on the polar regions of Mars, and it has done exactly that.

Through digging, it uncovered bright chunks. These were originally thought to be either ice or salt. However, when Phoenix checked the same location a few days later, it discovered that many of the dice sized chunks were missing. Salt definitely does not do this! This is very solid evidence for these white chunks to be ice, which probably soon after sublimed over the course of four Martian days. The animation shows the change over the four days.

Image from NASA.