To properly feel like a stowaway, I'd have to get the information in the same manner as the MERs.

Cassini was only 10,000,000 kilometers from Saturn on 2004-Jun-14 at 11:15:22 UTC in Spacecraft Event Time.

__________________
http://www.yaohua2000.org/

I've been looking forward to Cassini's arrival since I was in high school in the early 1990's. I've been following it since it was launched in 1997, watching it gradually getting nearer its destination.

This should be a great mission. Possibly the best of all time. I can't wait to see the first radar images of Titan.

By the way, does anyone know which satellite it's due to fly by next? I couldn't find it on the Cassini web site.

Here's a timeline (in PDF format) of the near future. Cassini passes within 205,000 miles of Titan on July 2.

Below is a list of all the close flybys, from the Cassini Arrival Press Kit (also in PDF format).

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

The next will be Mimas on July 1.

__________________
http://www.yaohua2000.org/

Iapetus is the next important moon but the Cassini-Huygens will miss it by a fair degree during its first flight path



http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-...6E2VQUD_0.html


Like yaohua2000 has said. The Cassini probe will be very close to Mimas on the 1st of July , however I think there are some other great moons close to it on that day such as Dione, Rhea and Enceladus

you can check the orbit on the website above, the 'Where is Cassini-Huygens now flash animation' you can click on the moon or probe to see what will happen in the upcoming days

There's some odd looking parallel rays coming from several craters on the left side of this photo. I wonder what could've caused that?

It could be ejecta thrown up by the impactor that made the crater. They look similar to the ones we can see on our own Moon. Lighter colored material excavated from below the surface is thrown from the crater and covers the darker surface material.

Very cool image!

__________________
"A mystic is a person who is puzzled before the obvious but who understands the nonexistent." -- Elbert Hubbard

Cassini will be only 9,000,000 kilometers from Saturn on 2004-Jun-16 at 10:12:40 UTC in Spacecraft Event Time.

__________________
http://www.yaohua2000.org/

How fast is Cassini traveling, by the way?

how fast ?

I can't be sure but I heard it went about 5-7 kilometres per second, now that's fast !

That's right - about 6 kilometers per second (relative to Saturn) when it flew past Phoebe. But it's been picking up speed since then.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Here is a table:

Date (00:00 UTC) / Distance to Saturn in kilometers / Speed related to Saturn in meters per second
2004-03-23 49685099 5368
2004-03-24 49221262 5369
2004-03-25 48757335 5370
2004-03-26 48293305 5372
2004-03-27 47829146 5373
2004-03-28 47364848 5375
2004-03-29 46900397 5377
2004-03-30 46435777 5379
2004-03-31 45970974 5381
2004-04-01 45505984 5383
2004-04-02 45040810 5385
2004-04-03 44575465 5387
2004-04-04 44109952 5389
2004-04-05 43644285 5391
2004-04-06 43178485 5392
2004-04-07 42712562 5394
2004-04-08 42246520 5395
2004-04-09 41780351 5396
2004-04-10 41314042 5398
2004-04-11 40847584 5400
2004-04-12 40380960 5402
2004-04-13 39914144 5404
2004-04-14 39447122 5407
2004-04-15 38979873 5410
2004-04-16 38512395 5412
2004-04-17 38044679 5415
2004-04-18 37576717 5418
2004-04-19 37108518 5421
2004-04-20 36640096 5423
2004-04-21 36171463 5425
2004-04-22 35702631 5428
2004-04-23 35233602 5430
2004-04-24 34764379 5432
2004-04-25 34294962 5435
2004-04-26 33825332 5437
2004-04-27 33355469 5440
2004-04-28 32885350 5443
2004-04-29 32414955 5446
2004-04-30 31944266 5450
2004-05-01 31473262 5454
2004-05-02 31001921 5458
2004-05-03 30530239 5462
2004-05-04 30058212 5466
2004-05-05 29585841 5470
2004-05-06 29113129 5474
2004-05-07 28640079 5478
2004-05-08 28166706 5481
2004-05-09 27693012 5485
2004-05-10 27218985 5489
2004-05-11 26744612 5493
2004-05-12 26269872 5498
2004-05-13 25794740 5502
2004-05-14 25319190 5507
2004-05-15 24843182 5513
2004-05-16 24366688 5519
2004-05-17 23889682 5525
2004-05-18 23412140 5531
2004-05-19 22934037 5538
2004-05-20 22455355 5545
2004-05-21 21976079 5552
2004-05-22 21496209 5558
2004-05-23 21015735 5566
2004-05-24 20534639 5573
2004-05-25 20052908 5580
2004-05-26 19570516 5588
2004-05-27 19087429 5597
2004-05-28 18603745 5580
2004-05-29 18121381 5589
2004-05-30 17638163 5600
2004-05-31 17154035 5611
2004-06-01 16668926 5623
2004-06-02 16182772 5635
2004-06-03 15695499 5649
2004-06-04 15207044 5663
2004-06-05 14717341 5678
2004-06-06 14226315 5694
2004-06-07 13733888 5711
2004-06-08 13239983 5729
2004-06-09 12744504 5748
2004-06-10 12247341 5768
2004-06-11 11748353 5790
2004-06-12 11247374 5815
2004-06-13 10744220 5842
2004-06-14 10238668 5871
2004-06-15 9730460 5904
2004-06-16 9219295 5941
2004-06-17 8704825 5982
2004-06-18 8186651 6028
2004-06-19 7664292 6081
2004-06-20 7137157 6142
2004-06-21 6604538 6211
2004-06-22 6065542 6293
2004-06-23 5519019 6391
2004-06-24 4963441 6510
2004-06-25 4396701 6659
2004-06-26 3815773 6853
2004-06-27 3216060 7118
2004-06-28 2589934 7507
2004-06-29 1923040 8156
2004-06-30 1181114 9555

Here is also a chart show you the speed related to the Sun:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:C...to_the_Sun.png

Note: The data above was calculated with the old ephemeris, but which is out of date now. An updated Cassini reference trajectory was released on May 13, 2004. So the distance may be not quite exactly. But the error would be quite small, should be less than 1000 kilometers, I think.

__________________
http://www.yaohua2000.org/

Great to see we are now in the single digit numbers for "millions". Before we know it, it will be thousands!
Given how Phoebe looked in the images, its sure acts as a preview what kind of detail we'll see at the other moons. Given Titan's conditions, I don't think we'll see much there besides a big orange ball, but at least we should get a good radar map of it.
By the way, what other solid bodies of the solar system have been mapped (besides Earth)? I only know of our Moon, Venus, and Mars. I say "solid" bodies, since the gas giants change their features constantly (except for Jupiter's GRS).

__________________
This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

Define "mapped"

__________________
"Flying in space is risky business, but just staying on this planet is risky business too." - John Young, astronaut

A detailed survey. Sort of like what the Magellan probe did with Venus. Or what the Mars Global Surveyor is doing at Mars. Or the lunar probes and the moon. Or are these different things? I know the lunar surveys had the bonus of selecting landing sites. I guess a good enough survey where one could make a globes as detailed as a globe of the Earth.

__________________
This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

I can't wait to see the first radar images of Titan, not to mention the Huygens data. I wonder if it really does have seas of hydrocarbons?

I remember that before Voyager II flew past Triton, some people were predicting that it might find seas of liquid ethane. I was quite disappointed when nothing of the sort was found.

A frivolous thought: If Cassini and Huygens do find solid evidence of hydrocarbon seas on Titan, will we start hearing a lot of crackpot schemes to bring it back to Earth to make gasoline?

As long as we don't find a very, very cheap method of transport, I think anything like recycling, synthesis or biomass conversion would be much cheaper than getting your gas from Titan.

__________________
"Flying in space is risky business, but just staying on this planet is risky business too." - John Young, astronaut

I cant wait to see detailed images of Herschel crater on Mimas.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06072

This image at the photo journal helps in the crater chain research work I am involved with. We now know that Phoebe has what the scientists are calling “crater pits”. They are still with in the parameters of the crater chains I’m curious about.

Keep going Cassini ! !

__________________
It's not what you know or don't know, but what you know that isn't so that will hurt you. Will Rogers
http://www.craterchains.com/ns/nspage.html

Yes, of course. You'd use many times more energy sending a spacecrft to Titan than you could get by burning any hydrocarbons that it brought back. That's why I said such schemes would be "crackpot".

Cassini will be only 8,000,000 kilometers from Saturn on 2004-Jun-18 at 08:33:50 UTC in Spacecraft Event Time.

__________________
http://www.yaohua2000.org/

Its a "crackpot" schemes in today's world. In the far future, it'd be routine. Imagine what people 300 years ago, in the age of sail, would think of the supertankers of today. Would they belive a giant steel vessel weighing thousands of tons would be able to cross the seas with millions of gallons of oil?
Imagine 300 years from now, supertankers in space, making trips to and from Earth, delivering such resources. Of course, by then we'd probably no longer use oil for power. Rather, it'd be used for making plastics.
And to think it all could start thanks to a little (big) space probe.

__________________
This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

have a look at this one, it's a great image!


http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/media.../147_172_1.jpg


The image shows the swirls and shows up Saturns bands in a black and white image,
it was taken using an Infrared imaging

The "newest" picture posted on the Cassini website was taken over 5 weeks ago :x

they must be combing through some of the other pictures taken and trying to polish up some of the older pics

it might have the chance to take some far away photos of Rhea on the 29th of June and mimas on July1

:wink:

It probably takes a while to process the images before we get to look at them. I image the team will allow a number of images to accumlate in their collection, then release one daily, APOD-style. SPOD!
Anyone have any ideas what they're doing when the BIG day arrives?
Less than 10 days to go....

__________________
This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

Probably, because they release pictures taken a month ago. For example, today's photo of Iapetus was taken on May, 23.

I didn't even know Cassini snapped an image of Iapetus. Isn't there a close fly-by of Iapetus?
And even with all those Titan fly-bys, Cassini could still give some good images of the other moons, right?
I wonder if during the ring crossing, it can take an image or two. That would be a sight! And of course, a Saturian weather report (time lapses of the clouds, like Galieo would've done at Jupiter).
"Today's forecast, lots of clouds with a high of -140. And on Titan, more smog, followed by less smog. Elsewhere, cold and clear, with a change of solar wind and space dust. This weather report brought to you by
Weather Servo 9!"

__________________
This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

Yes, two of them. First will be on January 1st, 2004 if I remember correctly.

Yes. It will visit all the classical moons (Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, and Iapetus), some of them multiple times. I'm not sure about Mimas. And of course it will make more distant observations of all of them including small inner satellites.

If you meant during the Saturn Orbit Insertion, no. Any imaging is impossible since the for pointing the camera whole spacecraft must be rotated. Along the Saturn Orbital Tour there will be plenty of opportunities to view the ring plane crossings.

Well, Cassini will observe Saturn and Titan constantly. Don't forget that Cassini will spend its time closer them than when the now-released images were taken.