NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will make its 13th flyby of Titan over the weekend, and for the first time will attempt to send new data about Saturn’s giant fog-shrouded moon directly back to mission scientists.
Passing Titan at a distance of 1,951 kilometers (1,219 miles) at a speed of 5.8 kilometers per second (12,977 miles per hour), Cassini will transmit radio waves through the moon’s thick atmosphere back to Earth. The experiment is designed to reveal characteristics about the atmosphere’s temperature, chemical structure and winds. The spacecraft has never attempted this type of data-gathering before, but the Voyager 1 probe conducted a similar experiment in 1980.
Also during this flyby, Cassini will bounce radio waves off Titan’s the surface for receipt on back on the ground. Scientists think the reflectivity at different wavelengths will provide information about surface roughness and composition.
Among the spacecraft’s more conventional tasks are searching for mid-latitude clouds, auroras and hotspots, and changes in surface properties. VIMS will also characterize the geologic features, haze and composition of Titan’s equatorial region. Cassini also will continue its mapping of trace elements including carbon monoxide, water and hydrogen cyanide and conduct observations of Titan’s interaction with Saturn’s magnetosphere.
