http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has teamed up with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to study a rare storm in the atmosphere of the planet Saturn in more detail than has ever been possible before. The new study by an international team will appear this week in the journal Science. http://phys.org/news225032128.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 May 2011 14:00:04 EST news225032128 (PhysOrg.com) -- By precisely tracking NASA's Cassini spacecraft on its low swoops over Saturn's moon Titan, scientists have determined the distribution of materials in the moon's interior. The subtle gravitational tugs they measured suggest the interior has been too cold and sluggish to split completely into separate layers of ice and rock. http://phys.org/news187544807.html Space & Earth Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:52:19 EST news187544807 (PhysOrg.com) -- Planetary scientists have been puzzling for years over the honeycomb patterns and flat valleys with squiggly edges evident in radar images of Saturn's moon Titan. Now, working with a "volunteer researcher" who has put his own spin on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, they have found some recognizable analogies to a type of spectacular terrain on Earth known as karst topography. A poster session today, Thursday, March 4, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, displays their work. http://phys.org/news186998208.html Space & Earth Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:00:01 EST news186998208 Saturn will be opposite the sun in our sky on March 21, when it will be closest to Earth in its orbit. Rising in the east at sunset, appearing highest in the south around midnight and setting in the west at dawn, Saturn will be easily visible almost all night during March as it crosses the southern sky, glowing bright yellow among the stars of the constellation Virgo. http://phys.org/news186766892.html Space & Earth Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:10:01 EST news186766892 (PhysOrg.com) -- Newly released images from last November's swoop over Saturn's icy moon Enceladus by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal a forest of new jets spraying from prominent fractures crossing the south polar region and yield the most detailed temperature map to date of one fracture. http://phys.org/news186165121.html Space & Earth Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:33:45 EST news186165121 (PhysOrg.com) -- Like the battered white whale Moby Dick taunting Captain Ahab, Saturn's moon Prometheus surges toward the viewer in a 3-D image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. http://phys.org/news185811275.html Space & Earth Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:15:49 EST news185811275 A new technique is being developed to detect water in the protoplanetary disks of other solar systems. If successful, it would help in our understanding of how habitable planets form. http://phys.org/news185729941.html Space & Earth Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:00:02 EST news185729941 (PhysOrg.com) -- Blazing through its closest pass of the Saturnian moon Mimas on Feb. 13, Cassini sent back striking close-ups of the moon likened to the Death Star from "Star Wars" and the enormous crater scarring its surface. The flyby also yielded solid data on the moon's thermal signature and surface composition. http://phys.org/news185621823.html Space & Earth Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:30:02 EST news185621823 (PhysOrg.com) -- On Feb. 13, 2010, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make its closest examination yet of Mimas, an eyeball-shaped moon of Saturn that has also been likened to the Death Star of "Star Wars." The spacecraft will be returning the highest-resolution images yet of this battered satellite. http://phys.org/news185193478.html Space & Earth Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:47:02 EST news185193478 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA will extend the international Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn and its moons to 2017. The agency's fiscal year 2011 budget provides a $60 million per year extension for continued study of the ringed planet. http://phys.org/news184438837.html Space & Earth Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:01:44 EST news184438837 (PhysOrg.com) -- Mars will be at its highest and brightest for the year during February, coming into view in the east as evening twilight fades. The red planet was closest to Earth in its orbit on Jan. 27, and it will remain near its best all month as it outshines every star except Sirius. http://phys.org/news184266589.html Space & Earth Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:22:30 EST news184266589 (PhysOrg.com) -- Looking for all intents and purposes like a celestial egg after a session in Saturn's skillet, Prometheus displayed its pockmarked, irregular surface for NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Jan. 27, 2010. http://phys.org/news183994478.html Space & Earth Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:34:52 EST news183994478 A new project aims to replicate the surface on the moon Titan in order to learn more about its hydrocarbon lakes. This study could also tell us about the chemistry that led to the origin of life on early Earth. http://phys.org/news183911019.html Space & Earth Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:40:01 EST news183911019 (PhysOrg.com) -- Sixteen days after last visiting Saturn's largest moon, NASA's Cassini spacecraft returns for another look-see of the cloud-shrouded moon - this time from on high. The flyby on Thursday, Jan. 28, referred to as "T-66" in the hollowed halls of Cassini operations, will place the spacecraft within 7,490 kilometers (4,654 miles) above the surface during time of closest approach. http://phys.org/news183842610.html Space & Earth Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:40:01 EST news183842610 (PhysOrg.com) -- Hills with a wrinkly radial pattern stand out in a new radar image captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 28, 2009. http://phys.org/news183658072.html Space & Earth Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:40:01 EST news183658072 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Huygens probe parachuted down to the surface of Saturn's haze-shrouded moon Titan exactly five years ago on Jan. 14, 2005, providing data that scientists on NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn are still building upon today. http://phys.org/news182709593.html Space & Earth Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:40:27 EST news182709593 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA'S Cassini spacecraft will return to Titan's southern hemisphere on a flyby tomorrow, Jan. 12, plunging to within about 1,050 kilometers (about 670 miles) of the hazy moon's surface. http://phys.org/news182539298.html Space & Earth Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:22:56 EST news182539298 (PhysOrg.com) -- Blobs of warm ice that periodically rise to the surface and churn the icy crust on Saturn's moon Enceladus explain the quirky heat behavior and intriguing surface of the moon's south polar region, according to a new paper using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. http://phys.org/news182448842.html Space & Earth Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:15:14 EST news182448842 (PhysOrg.com) -- New research by Macquarie University planetary scientist Dr Craig O’Neill and US colleague Francis Nimmo has found the answer to an apparent cosmic contradiction. http://phys.org/news182421024.html Space & Earth Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:20:01 EST news182421024 (PhysOrg.com) -- Though there are no plans to investigate whether Saturn's moon Titan has a Santa Claus, NASA's Cassini will zoom close to Titan's north pole this weekend. http://phys.org/news181194786.html Space & Earth Mon, 28 Dec 2009 03:53:31 EST news181194786 (PhysOrg.com) -- If a suggestion to be made to NASA comes to fruition, vast lakes thought to be filled with liquid hydrocarbons near the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan, may one day be explored by boat. http://phys.org/news180680793.html Space & Earth Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:10:01 EST news180680793 Saturn's largest moon, Titan, looks to be the only place in the solar system—aside from our home planet, Earth—with copious quantities of liquid (largely, liquid methane and ethane) sitting on its surface. According to planetary astronomer Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Earth and Titan share yet another feature, which is inextricably linked with that surface liquid: common fog. http://phys.org/news180350535.html Space & Earth Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:23:11 EST news180350535 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Cassini Spacecraft has captured the first flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn's moon Titan, confirming the presence of liquid on the part of the moon dotted with many large, lake-shaped basins. http://phys.org/news180296862.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:28:54 EST news180296862 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists once thought that life could originate only within a solar system's "habitable zone," where a planet would be neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on its surface. But according to planetary scientist Francis Nimmo, evidence from recent NASA missions suggests that conditions necessary for life may exist on the icy satellites of Saturn and Jupiter. http://phys.org/news180112635.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:55:19 EST news180112635 (PhysOrg.com) -- When it flies by Saturn's largest moon, Titan, this weekend, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will study the interactions between the magnetic field of Saturn and Titan. The flyby will take place the evening of Dec. 11 California time, or shortly after midnight Universal Time on Dec. 12. http://phys.org/news180032789.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:40:02 EST news180032789 Extensive analyses and modeling of Cassini imaging and heat-mapping data have confirmed and extended previous ideas that migrating ice, triggered by infalling reddish dust that darkens and warms the surface, may explain the mysterious two-toned "yin-yang" appearance of Saturn's moon Iapetus. The results, published online Dec. 10 in a pair of papers in the journal Science, provide what may be the most plausible explanation to date for the moon's bizarre appearance, which has puzzled astronomers for more than 300 years. http://phys.org/news179677088.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:18:55 EST news179677088 (PhysOrg.com) -- After waiting years for the sun to illuminate Saturn's north pole again, cameras aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft have captured the most detailed images yet of the intriguing hexagon shape crowning the planet. http://phys.org/news179601566.html Space & Earth Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:50:03 EST news179601566 Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggest that the eccentricity of Saturn's orbit around the sun may be responsible for the unusually uneven distribution of methane and ethane lakes over the northern and southern polar regions of the planet's largest moon, Titan. On Earth, similar "astronomical forcing" of climate drives ice-age cycles. http://phys.org/news178724806.html Space & Earth Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:49:18 EST news178724806 (PhysOrg.com) -- The diminutive moon Prometheus whips gossamer ice particles out of Saturn's F ring in this image taken by the Cassini spacecraft on Aug. 21, 2009. http://phys.org/news178393307.html Space & Earth Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:10:01 EST news178393307 (PhysOrg.com) -- In the first video showing the auroras above the northern latitudes of Saturn, Cassini has spotted the tallest known "northern lights" in the solar system, flickering in shape and brightness high above the ringed planet. http://phys.org/news178303936.html Space & Earth Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:53:17 EST news178303936