10-11-2006
NASA Finds Saturn's Moons May be Creating New Rings
Cassini scientists are on the trail of the missing moons of Saturn. A recent observation by the spacecraft leads them to believe that they will find the moons near newly discovered rings around the planet. During an unprecedented opportunity, with the sun poised behind Saturn, Cassini scientists discovered two new rings and confirmed the presence of two others. The new rings are associated with one or more small mooCassini scientists are on the trail of the missing moons of Saturn. A recent observation by the spacecraft leads them to believe that they will find the moons near newly discovered rings around the planet. During an unprecedented opportunity, with the sun poised behind Saturn, Cassini scientists discovered two new rings and confirmed the presence of two others. The new rings are associated with one or more small moons and share their orbits with the moons, while scientists suspect a moon is lurking near a third ring.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20061011c.html
Cassini completed its closest flyby of the odd moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007. The spacecraft flew about 1,640 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Iapetus' surface and is returning amazing views of the bizarre moon. All the data were successfully recorded on the spacecraft. Twenty-one minutes into the first post-flyby data downlink, the spacecraft went into a precautionary condition called safe mode. The cause has been determined to be a solid state power switch that was tripped due to a galactic cosmic ray hit. [...]
Raw images of the flyby: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-list.cfm?browseLatest=0&cacheQ=0&storedQ=0
First direct proof that the jets (formed by water ice in large quantities) indeed come from the moon's surface "tiger stripes"' hot spots.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini20071010.html