The Cassini–Huygens space-research mission, commonly called Cassini, involved a collaboration among NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the Saturn planet and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit. The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

Launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur on October 15, 1997, Cassini was active in space for nearly 20 years, with 13 years spent orbiting Saturn and studying the planet and its system after entering orbit on July 1, 2004. The voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (April 1998 and July 1999), Earth (August 1999), the asteroid 2685 Masursky, and Jupiter (December 2000). The mission ended on September 15, 2017, when Cassini's trajectory took it into Saturn's upper atmosphere and it burned up in order to prevent any risk of contaminating Saturn's moons, which might have offered habitable environments to stowaway terrestrial microbes on the spacecraft. The mission was successful beyond expectations – NASA's Planetary Science Division Director, Jim Green, described Cassini-Huygens as a "mission of firsts" that has revolutionized human understanding of the Saturn system, including its moons and rings, and our understanding of where life might be found in the Solar System.

Cassini's planners originally scheduled a mission of four years, from June 2004 to May 2008. The mission was extended for another two years until September 2010, branded the Cassini Equinox Mission. The mission was extended a second and final time with the Cassini Solstice Mission, lasting another seven years until September 15, 2017, on which date Cassini was de-orbited to burn up in Saturn's upper atmosphere.

The Huygens module traveled with Cassini until its separation from the probe on December 25, 2004; Huygens landed by parachute on Titan on January 14, 2005. It returned data to Earth for around 90 minutes, using the orbiter as a relay. This was the first landing ever accomplished in the outer Solar System and the first landing on a moon other than Earth's Moon.

At the end of its mission, the Cassini spacecraft executed its "Grand Finale": a number of risky passes through the gaps between Saturn and Saturn's inner rings. This phase aimed to maximize Cassini's scientific outcome before the spacecraft was intentionally destroyed. The atmospheric entry of Cassini ended the mission, but analysis of the returned data will continue for many years.

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  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    It's worth it, the movie is also more or less good enough. It's amazingly animated and has absolutely brutal gore.

      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Oh no, it's like normal bunny territory issues told like an ancient epic. It's not at all meant to be edge, it's horrific and meant to be that way for a good reason. It fits the story and is classy bunny gore weirdly enough.

        • Melon [she/her,they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          yeah sometimes kids media can be dark for good reason and sometimes it shows some of the greatest maturity ever concerning violence, like in grave of the fireflies

          • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            Yeah, it's along those lines. It's very worth the 90 minutes. The story is fantastic and told very succinctly, the animation quality is like, stunning and it has Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel

            • Melon [she/her,they/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              3 years ago

              what a good kits book, media really should take risks like that and jsut do offensive things, I keep thinking about a story of Christianity being relentlessly politicized for good just to piss off my fellow secular tankies

              edit if I seem incoherent im drunk rn sorry humanities matter, there needs to be a check on the people who think thye have it all figured out

              • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                I found it on YouTube, it's actually one of my favorite movies ever.

                https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h131d_GDkAk

                'all the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies, and when they catch you they will kill you.

                But first they must catch you.

                Digger, runner, prince with swift warning, be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.'

                • Melon [she/her,they/them]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  sometimes it is necessary to teach kids about avoiding destruction, to resist the forces of annihilation

                  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    It's basically if Lord of the rings was normal rabbit life and Sauron was people putting in a parking lot. It was based on the author observing rabbits and it's all based on real landscape. It's a bout a five mile journey but it's rabbits so its an epic quest.

                  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    Ooh, there was also a progressive sludge/crust band called Fall of Efrafa that released three concept albums about the book and the rabbits have a semi developed fake language ala LOTR elvish

                    • Melon [she/her,they/them]
                      ·
                      3 years ago

                      rabbits can do bad tho, context matters, if Lenin was in Australia he woudl be forgiven for violently persuing rabbits