HAPPY BIRTHDAY CASSINI
by Hazed
What did you do on your last birthday? Have a party, go out for a meal, maybe a drink or two... I hope you didn’t spend it all alone, a long, long way from home, like Cassini did last week.
On Monday, the NASA spacecraft that’s orbiting Saturn turned fifteen. One billion miles away from Earth, there were no candles to blow out, no drinks to be shared.
Cassini can be proud of its achievements. It’s travelled more than 3.8 billion miles, touring Venus and Jupiter on its way to Saturn and its moons. It’s sent back 444GB of scientific data, which includes 300,000 images. All this data has resulted in over 2,500 reports published in scientific journals.
By any measure, this truly was a successful mission - and it’s still going on. Happy birthday, Cassini!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/16/cassini_probe_turns_15/
