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Cassini flybys probe the depths of Titan's methane sea
As Cassini makes the final rounds of Saturn on its roughly 20-year mission, the spacecraft has maneuvered into position over Titan to explore Ligeia Mare, the second-largest methane sea on the planet's largest moon.
Cassini starts preparing for its sensational grand finale
Cassini, the spacecraft responsible for spectacular images of Saturn and its moons, is expected to dive into Saturn's atmosphere and burn up on September 15th, 2017. To prepare for this grand finale, it has begun maneuvering to higher altitudes, way above Saturn's rings and equator. In fact, it's just finished making its second maneuver on January 23rd, which took 90 minutes overall. Three more maneuvers will follow until it's near enough the planet's moon Titan so that its gravity can pull Cassini up. The spacecraft's target location is a certain altitude and latitude above the moon.
Cassini leaves Saturn's moon Enceladus after one last mission
The Cassini vehicle has been visiting Saturn's moon Enceladus for a full decade now, but it's finally time for the two to bid adieu. The spacecraft will fly by Enceladus for the last time at 12:49PM on Saturday, skimming a "moderately close" 3,106 miles above the surface. It won't just be reminiscing on its way out, though: its last major Enceladus mission will see it mapping the icy moon's internal heat, taking advantage of Saturn's years-long winter to conduct studies in ideal conditions.
Cassini takes close-up pictures of Saturnian moon's north pole
Yes, the image above shows the cratered surface of a moon, but it's not ours -- it's Saturn's ice-covered satellite, Enceladus. NASA has received the first batch of photos Cassini captured during its flyby close to the celestial body's north pole on October 14th. This is the first time we've seen that part of Enceladus up close, as it always seemed to be engulfed in wintry darkness those previous times the spacecraft passed by. Apparently, NASA expected its surface to be heavily cratered based on the low-res images taken by Voyager decades ago. While it turns out that it is indeed cratered, we now know that it's also covered in cobwebby cracks. "These thin cracks are ubiquitous on Enceladus," Cassini imaging team member Paul Helfenstein said, "and now we see that they extend across the northern terrains as well."
Cassini will soar close to Saturn moon Enceladus for the last time
NASA is considering a mission that will look into the habitability of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, thanks to data gathered by the Cassini probe. Now, the spacecraft will get up close and personal with the natural satellite by doing three flybys, possibly for the last time, as it has only has two years left. According to NASA, the probe will soar close to the moon's north pole, which was too dark to photograph during earlier flights. The agency hopes to find out whether it has fractures similar to the ones found at the moon's south pole and whether it was geologically active in the past. Cassini is flying at an altitude of 1,142 miles above Enceladus' surface today, October 14th, with a second flyby scheduled for late October and a third for mid-December.
Saturn's moon Enceladus has a global, water-based ocean
Scientists have suspected for a while that Saturn's moon Enceladus has a giant water ocean, and they now have some hard evidence to support their theories. Thanks to the Cassini spacecraft, NASA has discovered a "very slight wobble" in the moon that can only be explained by a global ocean that lets the icy crust move. Think of it like shaking an egg -- the changes in Enceladus' speed during orbit make its surface (the shell) shift around its rocky core (the yolk).
The Big Picture: Saturn illuminates the surface of its icy moon
Saturn's moon Enceladus is covered in ice. We already knew that. But what you see above is evidence of just how icy it actually is. The right side of the celestial body isn't illuminated by the sun. Nope, that's actually brightened by the light reflecting off of the adjacent ringed planet according to NASA. If you're looking for something a bit more solar in nature, take a peek at the bright wedge on the moon's left side. The aerospace outfit says that these types of pictures from Cassini are "designed to capture the extended plume of icy material" coming off the moon's south pole.
NASA releases gorgeous image of Saturn's moon Dione
NASA today released a new image of Dione, one of Saturn's many moons, as the spacecraft responsible for the shots moved into the next phases of its assignment. The visible light photograph displays the many craters and ice cliffs on Dione's surface. The Cassini spacecraft, named for the Italian astronomer who discovered Dione in 1684, has been touring Saturn and its many moons for the last 11 years and has already produced dozens of stunning pictures. Most recently, it completed five flybys of Dione, with the fifth at only 295 miles --the closest distance of the bunch.
Cassini captures detailed images of Saturn's moon Dione
This is a photo of Dione, one of Saturn's moons. Just like the planet's most stunning images, this picture was also captured by NASA's and ESA's Cassini spacecraft, as it flew by on June 16th. The vessel, which has been orbiting Saturn for over a decade, took the pictures in visible light using a narrow-angle camera at an altitude of 321 miles from the moon's pockmarked surface. While that's pretty close, the closest flyby yet happened in 2011, when Cassini flew by Dione at an altitude of 62 miles.
Seven Sega Saturn oddities you never played
It was 20 years ago today that Sega released the Sega Saturn, the US video game industry's first and only surprise console release. Tom Kalinske, Sega of America's CEO at the time, walked out onstage at E3 and announced to a theater full of game publishers, journalists and store owners that its new console was available right now for a whopping $400. If that seems like an insane business plan, it was; Saturn was so rushed to market that its scant few games didn't even have titles printed on their case's spines. Expensive and difficult to developer for, it was quickly buried by the popularity of Sony's PlayStation. The sad truth is that while the Saturn wasn't a hit here in the US, it actually enjoyed a healthy following in Japan thanks to an abundance of excellent games that only made it out in that region. Here are seven curios for Sega's maligned machine that make it a must for fans of the obscure.
Saturn's icy moon possibly has warm waters that could foster life
Enceladus used to be just another icy moon until the Cassini spacecraft spotted geysers on its surface, spewing water 125 miles into the sky back in 2005. Now, after years of research, scientists have published two studies suggesting that these geysers are caused by hydrothermal vents or fissures that heat the water at the bottom of the 6-mile-deep ocean beneath the Saturn's moon ice crust. Why is that important? Well, if the vents truly exist, the waters that surround them will contain chemicals and minerals necessary for life. Plus, the conditions around those vents will be similar to the environment surrounding Atlantic Ocean's hydrothermal field -- the place where life on Earth might have begun.
Watch how a NASA sub could explore Titan's biggest methane sea
NASA has long announced that it wants to create a tough-as-nails submarine that can withstand extreme conditions, because it's going to explore the largest liquid methane/ethane sea on Saturn's biggest moon Titan. Now, the agency has released a concept video of the robotic submersible and also revealed more details about the potential mission at this year's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Symposium. Despite being a natural satellite, Titan is pretty Earth-like with a dense atmosphere, and the agency likely wants to see if life once existed there or to look for clues on how life on Earth began. NASA envisions sending the unmanned vehicle on a 90-day mission exploring the depths of Titan's largest body of liquid ominously named Kraken Mare, collecting and analyzing samples the whole time.
This guy wants $164,000 for his gigantic video game collection
Do you have $164,000 handy? If so, you can snag nearly every retro console game since the beginning of the NES era. Ebay seller "reel.big.fish," also known as Nintendo Twizer, is selling a positively massive collection of games and consoles, spanning everything from the NES to Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Game Boy and much more. He claims to have complete sets of every single game for Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Virtual Boy, 32X, Sega Master System, Game Gear and NES (except for Stadium Events), in addition to several incomplete sets for other consoles, notably a hefty Sega Genesis collection. On top of all the games, there are also multiple variants of various consoles, including every single N64 color. There's far too much to list here – almost 6,000 games – so you may as well watch the video above, and you can also peruse the master list of every single game in the collection. The catch is that it's all being sold as a single lot, with a $164,000 asking price. That's pretty steep, to be sure, but before you scoff at the price, don't forget the crown jewel of the collection, a framed copy of "No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford," signed by artist Brandon Bird.
NASA wants to explore Saturn's biggest moon with drones
Despite brisk temperatures of -290 degrees F, Saturn's giant Titan moon is of great interest to scientists, thanks to Earth-like geography, hydrocarbon "lakes" and even possible life. Though NASA's Cassini-Huygens probe visited Titan some time ago, the space agency would like to return at some point -- this time with a quadrotor. Using the latest drone and sensor tech, it would weigh less than 10kg (22 pounds), deploy from a recharging nuclear "mothership" balloon and acquire high-res images from close to the surface. With the benefit of that reconnaissance, it could land at promising spots, take microscopic photos and scoop up samples to be analyzed later by the mothership. NASA plans to develop the mission concepts further and design the drone in collaboration with AeroVironment -- so we might one day see if Titan matches the insane artist concepts.
NASA catches a glimpse of Saturn birthing a new moon
For the first and perhaps the last time ever, NASA's Cassini spacecraft, whose mission is to orbit Saturn, has captured a new moon emerge from the jovian planet's rings. As you might know, the birth of a moon is an extremely rare event, and in Saturn's case, it might never happen again. You see, there's a theory that the sixth planet from the sun used to have a much larger ring system, which led to formation of numerous natural satellites. After birthing a whopping 62 moons, though, the rings are now too depleted to make more, even if they still look lush from afar. This could be our very last chance to observe how Saturn's ring particles form a natural satellite that detaches from the planet and ultimately orbits around it.
Seen@GDC 2014: (The mob surrounding) Yu Suzuki
There were a lot of people at the Shenmue postmortem panel during GDC. Alas, Yu Suzuki, director of Shenmue, didn't stun the audience with the surprise announcement of Shenmue 3. That wasn't enough to stop eager fans from crowding around the former Sega guru behind classics like Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Outrun, Daytona and Space Harrier. Can't see him in the photo above? Let's get a little closer.
Visualized: Saturn's relentless 'hexagon' storm
This isn't the first we've seen of Saturn's six-sided jet stream, but NASA's calling the GIF after the break "the first hexagon movie of its kind." The "movie" is made from a compilation of images taken by the Cassini spacecraft, and depicts a hurricane-like storm at the center of the "hexagon" that has populated the planet's north pole for decades, if not centuries. For more check out the press release at the source link below.
TUAW on YouTube Geek Week: Southern Stars and SkyCube
By now we hope you've watched the first two YouTube Geek Week videos from TUAW -- the Stupid WeMo Tricks. Now we're going to something equally geeky, but much more impressive. In these two videos, TUAW editor-in-chief Victor Agreda Jr. talks with Southern Stars Founder and CEO Tim DeBenedictis not only about the company's products -- astronomy and telescope control apps -- but also a project that DeBenedictis is literally trying to get off the ground. In this first video, you'll see Southern Stars' incredible SkySafari 3 Pro app (US$39.99) in action, not only giving you a view of what it would be like to be in orbit around Saturn, but also controlling a telescope using the company's SkyFi Wireless Telescope Controller. You'll also get an idea of how the company's SkySafari Plus for Mac ($19.99) works. But wait, there's more geekiness. DeBenedictis is working on a project to launch a small "CubeSat" called the SkyCube next year. It was funded through Kickstarter, and you can still buy a sponsorship of the satellite (including tweeting messages from space or having the satellite take a picture for you) on the SkyCube web page. The Southern Stars Satellite Safari app ($4.99) is what sponsors will use to command the satellite. In this video, Victor chats with DeBenedictis about the SkyCube project and you can see a mockup of the tiny satellite in action.
As the Cassini Spacecraft takes a faraway Earth picture, you can follow along
Earth will get a very not-too-close closeup today from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, now on the far side of the planet Saturn. The photo session will take place between 2:27 PM and 2:42 PM PDT. The Earth will be seen from 900 million miles away. It won't be a detailed image, but it is the longest-range photo ever taken of the Earth. This will likely be the one and only image the spacecraft takes of the Earth. You can follow along with a couple of iOS apps that will virtually take you there. First, SkySafari has just had an update to the iOS and Mac apps they offer. SkySafari's basic version will be free on the iTunes Store from July 19th through July 21st; it's normally US$3 at the iTunes Store. With SkySafari, observers around the globe can easily use their iPhone or GPS, compass and accelerometer to easily locate Saturn in the sky. A brand-new release of SkySafari Plus ($9.99 sale price) and Pro (3.8.1) ($29.99) lets mobile app users fly to Saturn, and simulate the view from Cassini. These powerful apps will be offered at up to 25 percent off regular price today, the day of the event, through Sunday, July 21st. Meanwhile, another great Astronomy app, Distant Suns (Classic) for iOS is having a half-price sale today at $1.99. Distant Suns Max is $3.99 down from a regular price of $9.99. Distant Suns can take you for a virtual view of the Earth from Saturn just as it will appear to the Cassini spacecraft. The Cassini mission has been pretty awesome. People around the world are gathering at planetariums and other public places to wave back at Saturn when the images of Earth are being taken. After the moon, I think my first views through my telescope when I was young were of Saturn. It's a beautiful sight. If you want to get a look at Saturn today and tonight here's a guide to help you. Saturn will be in the southwestern sky tonight from North America. With powerful binoculars or a small telescope, you should be able to see the rings. Here's another bit of trivia: Our own Steve Sande's wife Barbara was on the Cassini launch team. Well done! %Gallery-194190%
Journey through the cosmos with In Saturn's Rings, heading to IMAX in 2014 (video)
Ever since NASA's Cassini-Huygens spacecraft entered Saturn's orbit in 2004, filmmaker Stephen van Vuuren has been enthralled with its progress. So much so that he's spent years collecting over a million insanely high-res photos from Cassini's mission and quilted them together into a 45-minute film called In Saturn's Rings. Without relying on CGI or fancy visual effects, van Vuuren has patched together a seamless visual journey through our solar system, culminating in a breathtaking view of Saturn's rings and moons. Distributed by BIG & Digital, the movie is expected to make its way to IMAX theaters sometime in 2014, though there's no word yet on a specific release date. The first official trailer dropped today, and you can watch it -- in 4K if you've got the right screen -- after the break.
