"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.

Cassini Meets The Jets of Enceladus

NASA's Cassini spacecraft made a close flyby on Wednesday March 12 of Enceladus, one of Saturn's numerous moons. Cassini flew by the moon at 15 kilometers per second (32,000 mph), through icy water jets, that are similar to geysers. With the information from the flyby, the tiny ice moon Enceladus is revealed to be active and hot. It also has a lot of water vapor and organic material.

There are many fractures running along the moon's south pole, from which the geysers shoot out water vapor at 400 meters per second (800 mph). The geysers added evidence that there may be liquid water under the icy crust of Enceladus.

Also, new heat maps of Enceladus taken by Cassini show higher temperatures in the south pole region, and hot tracks running along the fractures (see image at right). The strips of warmth, also called "tiger stripes," are giant fissures that are the source of the geysers.

The surprising thing about all this news was that the material coming from the inside of Enceladus resembles that of a comet. The Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer aboard the Cassini spacecraft saw a combination of volatile gases, water vapor, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and organic materials. It seems that all of these materials are pointing ton one thing: life. However, the final ingredient, liquid water, has not been confirmed yet.

All of these developments may lead to more information about the formation and composition of Saturn and its moons.

For more information:

• An animation of the jets on Enceladus (requires Quicktime).
• NASA Mission News (1, 2).
• Wikipedia (Cassini, Enceladus).

India Launches Italian Payload

On Monday, the Italian AGILE satellite was launched into space on top of an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. This was the first commercial launch that India's space program has ever conducted. Foreign spacecrafts have been launched with this vehicle, but this is the first time someone payed India to launch their cargo. The Italian Space Agency's AGILE will detect high-energy emissions. It carries a gamma ray imager, an X-ray detector, and a mini-calorimeter, which will be used to seek transient, or short, events, like gamma ray bursts. These bursts, usually only lasting a few minutes, are powerful and mysterious explosions scattered all over the universe. It has a wide field of view, examining one-fourth of the sky at a time, which allows the spacecraft to have a better chance to find these rare explosions. The craft is very sensitive to gamma rays, also.

For more information, visit:

• SPACE.com