Not quite done and dusted
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Did you know Trivia - The Cassini spacecraft which is studying the giant gaseous planet Saturn and its moons in a joint U.S.-European mission, flew as close as 30 miles from the surface of Enceladus (pronounced en-SELL-ah-dus) on Wednesday.
However, "an unexplained software glitch" occurred at a very bad time and prevented Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyzer instrument from grabbing data for about two hours as it flew over the surface.
One of the main objectives of the fly-by was to analyze the density, size, composition and speed of particles erupting into space from the moon's south pole in a dramatic plume.
Whilst the analyzer malfunction was unfortunate, "The other four fields and particles instruments on the spacecraft, in addition to the ion and neutral mass spectrometer, did capture all of their data, which will complement the overall composition studies and elucidate the unique plume environment of Enceladus," NASA said.
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Saturday 15 March, 2008 02:08 PM |
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