Astronomy, features and articles | Educational Science

Apr 28, 2017

'Giant Hurricane' on Saturn: 1st Images Back from Cassini's Epic Ring Dive

NASA's Cassini spacecraft dove between Saturn and its rings yesterday (April 26), snapping the closest-ever views of Saturn's atmosphere. The raw images, which began to stream back early this morning, indicating the probe had survived its journey, show intricate structures and a dark, swirling storm-like feature (which NASA called a...

May 9, 2017

Hexagon Eye of Saturn Stares into Space in Stunning Photo

Saturn never blinks. The ringed planet's bizarre eye — its north polar vortex and surrounding hexagonal jet stream — stares impassively out into space in an amazing photo by NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini probe. Though NASA released the image just Monday (May 8), Cassini actually snapped it on Jan. 22. At...

Jun 1, 2017

Asteroid Collision May Have Tipped Saturn's Moon Enceladus

Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn that could host life, may have tipped over long ago. NASA's Cassini orbiter, which has been studying Saturn and its many moons up close since the probe arrived in 2004, has found evidence that Enceladus' axis of rotation has rotated by 55 degrees. That...

Jul 7, 2017

Calm Seas on Titan: Saturn Moon's Waves Less Than 1 Inch High

The liquid-hydrocarbon lakes and seas on Titan are incredibly calm, suggesting that future missions to the huge Saturn moon could enjoy a smooth ride to the surface, a new study reports. The waves rippling the three largest lakes in Titan's northern hemisphere are tiny, according to the study — just...

Sep 14, 2017

What Are Saturn's Rings?

Saturn's rings are one of the most striking features of the solar system. They encircle the sixth planet from the sun in bizarre configurations, each thousands of miles wide but just a few dozen feet thick. So what are they? The rings are mostly ice with a little bit of...

Sep 15, 2017

Spectacular Saturn Images by 'Amateurs' Will Make Your Jaw Drop

Wow! Saturn (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Earnest Hamby)Since 2004, the Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn, collecting gobs of data and images, resulting in major discoveries — from geysers and hydrothermal activity on Saturn's moon Enceladus to the dynamics of the planet's rings — plus some glorious artwork. Since all...

Sep 15, 2017

Moon Birth and Methane Weather: Cassini's 7 Oddest Saturn Finds

Saucy Saturn (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)The first Saturn-dedicated spacecraft, Cassini, orbited the planet for about 13 years. The craft's fiery (and lethal) plunge through the planet's atmosphere on Friday, Sept. 15, 2017, may be the end for the mighty spacecraft. But its discoveries about the ringed planet will live...

May 22, 2018

Here's Why Saturn's Inner Moons Are Shaped Like Ravioli and Potatoes

The new finding may help to explain how moons in general may form, researchers said in a new paper describing the work. The Cassini spacecraft, which studied the ringed planet up close for 13 years, revealed that unlike Earth's spherical moon, the small moons closest to Saturn had strange, irregular...

Jul 2, 2018

No Aliens, But Scientists Find More Evidence for Life on a Saturn Moon

Large, carbon-rich organic molecules seem to be spewing from cracks on the surface of Saturn's icy moon, Enceladus, according to a new study of data collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The discovery means that Enceladus is the only place besides Earth known to satisfy all the requirements for life as...

Jul 10, 2018

There's Spooky Plasma Music Traveling From Saturn to its Weirdest Moon

Two weeks before Cassini, a robot probe, destroyed itself in a controlled dive into Saturn's whirling atmosphere, it heard the gas giant sing to its weirdest moon. When Cassini passed between Saturn and its sixth-largest moon, Enceladus, it recorded for the first time a vibrating column of plasma passing from...

Sep 5, 2018

Saturn Sprouts Another Weird Hexagon, Puzzling Scientists

A bizarre, hexagon-shaped vortex has formed above Saturn's north pole as the planet's northern hemisphere enters summer, data from the international Cassini-Huygens mission revealed. The unusual vortex is circulating hundreds of kilometers above the clouds in the stratosphere layer of the ringed planet's atmosphere, a new study reported. This warm...

Oct 6, 2018

It's Raining Tiny Particles from Saturn's Innermost Ring

To distant, Earthling eyes, the gap between Saturn and its rings looks calm, like a deep breath of empty space between one beautifully intricate structure and another. But in 11 new papers, born from the demise of one of NASA's most beloved planetary science missions, scientists destroy that illusion, laying...

Dec 19, 2018

Saturn Is Losing Its Rings

That's the conclusion of a new investigation into a phenomenon called ring rain, which pulls water out of Saturn's rings and into the planet's midlatitude regions. Combined with earlier research this year using Cassini data to look at a different type of inflow from the rings to the planet, that...

Mar 28, 2019

Starquakes Rock Alien Sun, Revealing Details of a 'Hot Saturn'

A NASA space observatory called TESS has, for the first time, detected a planet orbiting a star with visible starquakes. That's a big deal, both because it shows the capabilities of the newly active TESS planet-hunting satellite and because it allowed astronomers to precisely characterize a newfound hot Saturn. That...

Mar 29, 2019

Why Saturn's 'Ring Moons' Are Different Colors and Shapes

The bizarre shapes and diverse colors seen in some of Saturn's moons may now be explained, with the help of data taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft before it plunged to its doom. These moons likely coalesced from the planet's rings and get their color from either ice volcanoes or a...