{"id":339384,"date":"2017-07-03T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=0227fd01aa0ac095836846cee7e9bd72"},"modified":"2017-07-03T03:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-03T07:00:00","slug":"saturn-and-rings-7-june-2017-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=339384","title":{"rendered":"Saturn and rings, 7 June 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\nThe international Cassini spacecraft has completed half of the 22 dives between Saturn and its rings before concluding its mission on 15 September. Cassini has been exploring the Saturnian system for 13 years, and has been making a series of \u2018grand finale\u2019 orbits since 22 April, taking the spacecraft into previously unexplored territory.   \n<\/p>\n

\nThe image shown here was captured on 7 June, on the approach to the eighth dive. It is a raw image taken with the wide-angle camera<\/a> and shows the planet, its rings, and a projection of Saturn\u2019s shadow onto the inner rings.\n<\/p>\n

\nEach of the 22 elliptical orbits<\/a> takes about six and a half days to complete, and sends the spacecraft diving through a 2 400 km wide space at speeds of 121 000\u2013126 000 km\/h.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs well as returning stunning images, the dives are enabling unique data to be collected that will help scientists solve mysteries regarding the mass of Saturn\u2019s rings and the planet\u2019s rotation rate. In the final five orbits the spacecraft will also dip down to directly sample Saturn\u2019s upper atmosphere.\n<\/p>\n

\nFollowing the last orbit, the spacecraft will make a distant flyby of Titan that will alter Cassini\u2019s trajectory one final time, sending it into a controlled plunge into the planet\u2019s atmosphere to conclude this incredible mission.\n<\/p>\n

\nRead more about the grand finale here<\/a> and check out the latest images in the raw image gallery<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Cassini\u2013Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and ASI, the Italian space agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\nThe international Cassini spacecraft has completed half of the 22 dives between Saturn and its rings before concluding its mission on 15 September. Cassini has been exploring the Saturnian system for 13 years, and has been making a series of ‘grand finale’ orbits since 22 April, taking the spacecraft into previously unexplored territory.   \n<\/p>\n

\nThe image shown here was captured on 7 June, on the approach to the eighth dive. It is a raw image taken with the wide-angle camera<\/a> and shows the planet, its rings, and a projection of Saturn’s shadow onto the inner rings.\n<\/p>\n

\nEach of the 22 elliptical orbits<\/a> takes about six and a half days to complete, and sends the spacecraft diving through a 2 400 km wide space at speeds of 121 000–126 000 km\/h.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs well as returning stunning images, the dives are enabling unique data to be collected that will help scientists solve mysteries regarding the mass of Saturn’s rings and the planet’s rotation rate. In the final five orbits the spacecraft will also dip down to directly sample Saturn’s upper atmosphere.\n<\/p>\n

\nFollowing the last orbit, the spacecraft will make a distant flyby of Titan that will alter Cassini’s trajectory one final time, sending it into a controlled plunge into the planet’s atmosphere to conclude this incredible mission.\n<\/p>\n

\nRead more about the grand finale here<\/a> and check out the latest images in the raw image gallery<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Cassini–Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and ASI, the Italian space agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=339384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339385,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339384\/revisions\/339385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=339384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=339384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=339384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}