Cassini Spacecraft Mission: Outcomes and Findings

The Cassini Spacecraft mission was a collaborative initiative of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), launched in October 1997 with the object to conduct a study on the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. This spacecraft comprised of both NASA’s Cassini probe and ESA’s Huygens lander which was landed on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan where it kept on cruising through the ringed planet system for more than twelve years, thus making numerous observations about the planet. The Spacecraft made number of discoveries which contributed a lot in enhancing the existing knowledge about   Saturn’s formation and its evolution and all other such related information.

Some of the major discoveries led by Cassini Spacecraft Mission are:

• The historic landing of Huygens’s on Titan revealed how Titan is remarkably similar to Earth (i.e., the time before life evolved on it), with all the methane rain, erosion and drainage channels, dry lake beds etc.
• Evidences of water-based ice like structure in the plume made a significant revelation about chances of life on Saturn.
• The mission made it possible to watch changes in Saturn’s dynamic ring system.
• It also revealed about the atmosphere of Titan, which is a mixture of methane, ethane, and other organic substances.
• The mission unveiled the largest storm ever known in the Solar System.