Saturn spacecraft to sweep near moon Dione today

Saturn spacecraft to sweep near moon Dione today
Jun 16, 2015
by Deborah Byrd in » Science Wire, Space

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will make a close flyby of Saturn’s moon Dione today (June 16, 2015), its second-to-last close approach before the spacecraft ends its mission next year. Cassini will come within 321 miles (516 kilometers) of Dione’s surface, making its closest approach at 1:12 p.m. PDT (4:12 p.m. EDT, 2112 UTC) on June 16. Translate to your time zone.

During the flyby, Cassini’s cameras and spectrometers will observe terrain that includes Eurotas Chasmata, seen in the lower left of the photo at the bottom of this post. The Voyager mission first observed this region 35 years ago as bright, wispy streaks.

After the Voyager encounter, scientists considered the possibility that the streaks were bright material extruded onto the surface by geologic activity, such as ice volcanoes.

Cassini’s close flybys and sharp vision later revealed the bright streaks to be an intricate network of braided canyons with bright walls, called linea.

Cassini will also try to detect and determine the composition of any fine particles being emitted from Dione, which could indicate low-level geologic activity.

Mission controllers expect images to begin arriving on Earth within a few days of the encounter.

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