Browse Archive

  • Part of an animation showing lakes on Titan

    Titan's Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves on Earth

    Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

  • False color Cassini image of jets in the southern hemisphere of Enceladus

    Saturn's Giant Sponge

    One of Saturn's rings soaks up material gushing from the fountains on the tiny ice-moon, Enceladus, according to new Cassini observations.

  • screen from Cassini interactive

    Journey to Saturn From Your Computer

    Want a peek at Saturn as seen from space? A new interactive allows users to travel to Saturn and see it the way the Cassini spacecraft sees it is now online.

  • artist concept of radio waves near Saturn's poles

    Planetary Scientists Close in on Saturn's Elusive Rotation

    Deep below Saturn's cloud tops, the planet rotates at a constant speed. Determining this interior period of rotation has proven complicated, but thanks to new Cassini results, European scientists have taken an important step forward.

    › European Space Agency release  →
  • Artist concept of Saturn's ring particles

    Saturn's Rings May be Old Timers

    New observations by NASA's Cassini spacecraft indicate the rings of Saturn, once thought to have formed during the age of the dinosaurs, instead may have been created roughly 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system was still under construction.

  • Artist Concept of Particle Population in Saturn's Magnetosphere

    Cassini Captures Best View Yet of Saturn's Ring Current

    Scientists have gotten their best "look" ever at the invisible ring of energetic ions trapped in Saturn's giant magnetic field.

  • Saturn's moon Atlas

    Saturn's Small Moons Tell Story of Origins

    Imaging scientists on NASA's Cassini mission are telling a tale of how the small moons orbiting near the outer rings of Saturn came to be.

  • From left to right: Alexander Sharpe, Joshua Leviton and Alistair McGregor are the winners of the 2007 Cassini Scientist-for-a-Day contest.

    Cassini Team Recruits Next Generation of Scientists

    NASA's Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn has some young new participants. A 10th-grade student in Delaware, a high school senior in California, and an 8th-grade American student in France are the winners of this year's Cassini Scientist-for-a-Day contest.

  • two students in Cassini program

    Be A Cassini Scientist For A Day

    The Ph.D. can wait for a few years! Students can have the fun of being a NASA scientist exploring the universe even before they've finished secondary school by participating in the Cassini Scientist-for-a-Day contest.

  • Rainbow on the Rings

    Inspiring Views Celebrate Cassini's Diamond Anniversary

    Ten years ago today, NASA's Cassini spacecraft departed planet Earth from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and embarked on a seven-year long, circuitous journey of several billion miles across the solar system to the planet Saturn.

  • launch of Cassini

    Cassini Celebrates 10 Years Since Launch

    Celebrating the 10th anniversary of its launch from Cape Canaveral, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn is once again at the center of scientific attention.

  • This Cassini false-color mosaic shows all synthetic-aperture.

    New Views of Titan's Land of Lakes and Seas

    Newly assembled radar images from the Cassini spacecraft provide the best view of the hydrocarbon lakes and seas on the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan, while a new radar image reveals that Titan's south polar region also has lakes.

  • Enceladus jets

    Hot Sources of Jets on Enceladus

    A recent analysis of images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft provides conclusive evidence that the jets of fine, icy particles spraying from Saturn's moon Enceladus originate from the hottest spots on the moon's "tiger stripe" fractures that straddle the moon's south polar region.

  • false-color view of Saturn's moon Iapetus

    Cassini on the Trail of a Runaway Mystery

    NASA scientists are on the trail of Iapetus' mysterious dark side, which seems to be home to a bizarre "runaway" process that is transporting vaporized water ice from the dark areas to the white areas of the Saturnian moon.

  • close-up of Iapetus

    Saturn's Iapetus: Solar System's Yin-and-Yang

    Scientists on the Cassini mission to Saturn are poring through hundreds of images returned from the Sept. 10 flyby of Saturn's two-toned moon Iapetus.

  • Iapetus

    Cassini Flies by Iapetus

    Cassini completed its closest flyby of the odd moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007.

  • Ultraviolet image of Iapetus

    Cassini Prepares to Fly by Walnut-Shaped Moon

    Cassini will make its only close flyby of Saturn's odd, two-toned, walnut-shaped moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007, at about 1,640 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the surface.

  • artist concept showing Huygens probe descent

    Turbulence Ahead - Lessons From Titan

    Ever spilled your drink on an airline due to turbulence? Researchers are finding new ways to understand the phenomenon - both in Earth's atmosphere and in that of Saturn's moon, Titan, aided by Huygens probe data.

  • Iapetus

    Saturn's Old Moon Retains Its Youthful Figure

    Saturn's distinctive moon Iapetus is cryogenically frozen in the equivalent of its teenage years.

  • Organics Sprinkled on Hyperion

    NASA Finds Hydrocarbons on Saturn's Moon Hyperion

    NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed for the first time surface details of Saturn's moon Hyperion, including cup-like craters filled with hydrocarbons that may indicate more widespread presence in our solar system of basic chemicals necessary for life.