Early Movies of Cassini’s First Dive
May 16, 2017
Still from Cassini’s ‘Porthole’ Movie of Saturn
In preparation for its grand finale plunge into Saturn in mid-September, 2017, the Cassini spacecraft has begun a series of orbits which bring it to within 5,000 miles of the planet’s cloud tops. Its new trajectory allows for the collection of exceptionally high resolution science data that hasn’t been possible since Cassini was first inserted into orbit in 2004. In particular, several movies taken April 26 have been created by the Cassini imaging team of the first, low altitude dive showing the north pole’s hexagonal-shaped jet stream and the spacecraft’s path along the planet’s surface. Future passes will include science and engineering data from the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) using instrument command sequences created by Team ADNET/SESDA instrument operators and programmers.
