Enceladus is Saturn’s sixth largest moon, only one-seventh the diameter of our Moon. Perhaps the mysterious sphere in the solar system where extraterrestrial life is most likely! In 1789, British astronomer William Herschel was the first to discover Enceladus, one of Saturn’s inner moons. This discovery was made with the 47 inch telescope he built….
But let’s see how long it has been since our spacecraft reached their destination. Launched on November 3, 1973, Mariner10 took 147 days to reach Mercury on March 29, 1974. But the speed still needs to go down a bit to reach the orbit. It took Messenger 1260 days to reach orbit. It will still…
The Deep Space Network – or DSN – is a series of giant radio antennas used to communicate NASA’s space missions. DSN is owned by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). DSN was founded in 1963. DSN dishes are placed in three places at equal distances from each other – approximately 120 degrees longitudinally. 1) Goldstone…
Saturn is 4.5 billion years old. That is, from the beginning of our solar system. No doubt. But the rings. The Cassini spacecraft studied Saturn and landed 22 times in orbits when it finally ran out of fuel. According to Voyager and Cassini, the rings formed between 10 and 100 million years ago. That is,…
Mariner was the first spacecraft to be launched to study Mercury on November 3, 1973Launched by NASA, this robotic spacecraft was the first spacecraft to fly over multiple planets. What is a fly-by or gravity assist? This is a technique used to increase the speed of an exploration vehicle when it is sent into space….
