Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2004 September 14 
Posted on 09/14/2004 7:37:32 AM PDT by petuniasevan
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2004 September 14
Explanation: A flying saucer from outer space crash-landed in the Utah desert last week after being tracked by radar and chased by helicopters. No space aliens were involved, however. The saucer, pictured above, was the Genesis sample return capsule, part of a human-made robot Genesis spaceship launched three years ago by NASA itself to study the Sun. The unexpectedly hard landing at over 300 kilometers per hour occurred because the parachutes did not open as planned. The Genesis mission had been orbiting the Sun collecting solar wind particles that are usually deflected away by Earth's magnetic field. A big question remains -- are the returned samples in good enough condition to recover information about the real composition of the Sun? Genesis team scientists and engineers are working hard to find out.
Cassini orbiter snaps Saturn's family portrait
CASSINI NEWS RELEASE
Posted: September 13, 2004
A stately Saturn poses for a portrait with five of its moons in this Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera view.
 Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Download larger image version here |
The image was taken in visible red light at a distance of 7.8 million kilometers (4.8 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 464 kilometers (288 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
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Thank you.
Oh gorgeous picture of Saturn. Sad about the crash of the saucer, too. Hope they can retrieve important data.
Some of the pieces inside Genesis were relatively intact, so they will get some good data after all.
Thanks for the ping.
What a picture of Saturn....taken 4.8 million miles away!
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