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Saturn's biggest and never-been-seen before ring has been discovered.The 'super-sized' halo was found by Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope. To get a sense of its size it has a vertical height which is about 20 times the diameter of the planet, which is nine times the size of our planet. Furthermore, the entire volume of the ring could hold about one billion Earths. The bulk of the ring starts about 3.7million miles from Saturn itself and extends outward about another 7.4million miles.With it being so huge many will ask how come it was not seen before. This is because the ring...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The internationally built Cassini spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of Saturn's largest outer moon as it prepares to enter a four-year orbit to study the ringed planet, NASA officials said Saturday. The plutonium-powered spacecraft, which is carrying 12 science instruments and a probe, came within about 1,285 miles of the dark moon Phoebe on Friday, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. The $3.3 billion spacecraft pointed its instruments at the moon then turned to point its antenna toward Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network received confirmation of communication at 7:52 a.m. PDT Saturday. Officials said the...

Phoebe probably distant traveller Cassini's images of Phoebe Images of Saturn's moon Phoebe from the Cassini spacecraft suggest it may be a relic of objects that formed billions of years ago in the outer Solar System. The pictures seem to show ice in its craters, boosting the theory that it is more similar to comets and very distant Solar System objects than to asteroids. Scientists think Phoebe migrated inwards and was probably captured by Saturn's gravity billions of years ago. Several tiny Saturn moons may have been blasted out of Phoebe by space impacts. "Battered and beat-up as [Phoebe] is,...

NASA's Cassini space probe confirmed Saturday that it had completed a flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Phoebe, coming within 1,285 miles of the small, dark body. The craft's main antenna was pointing away from Earth during the flyby Friday afternoon. Engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., did not receive word of the craft's successful pass until 10:52 a.m. EDT Saturday, when the craft re-oriented itself and began transmitting pictures and data back to mission control. Most of the data and pictures will be released today, but the early unprocessed images show that...

While the Reagan Funeral is obviously important, Cassini-Huygens must keep its designated appointment in the heavens on the National Day of Mourning: Cassini Spacecraft Near First Stop In Historic Saturn TourSaturn by Cassini and team Pasadena (JPL) Jun 10, 2004 The most complex interplanetary mission ever launched is about to meet one of the solar system's enigmatic moons. Cassini will fly by Saturn's largest outer moon, Phoebe, on Friday, June 11. The closest approach is at approximately 1:56 p.m. Pacific Time, just 19 days before Saturn arrival. A final trajectory correction maneuver is scheduled for June 16. On arrival date,...

Washington: A US-European space probe that will start orbiting Saturn this month has already shown "spectacular" images of the planet's crater-pocked Phoebe moon, scientists said on Monday. The Cassini-Huygens probe, which was launched on October 15, 1997, is to start orbiting Saturn on June 30. It passed within 2068 kilometres of Phoebe on Friday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. Cassini-Huygens is a $US3 billion ($A4.31 billion) joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). "What spectacular images. So sharp and clear and showing a great many geological features, large and small," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging...