Post

Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

Take a moment to think about what this image shows. That's a glint of sunlight, reflecting off a lake of liquid ethane and methane, on a moon that's larger than Mercury where the average surface temperature is –180°C, orbiting a giant ringed planet 1.4 billion kilometres away.

Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

Taken by a spacecraft launched in 1997 that flew past Venus on its way to Saturn, which operated until 2017 when it burned up in Saturn's atmosphere. This is NASA Photojournal image PIA12481, taken by Cassini on 8 July 2009 from a distance of 200,000 km from Titan during the spacecraft's 59th flyby.

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art3m1s.bsky.social
@art3m1s.bsky.social

Cassini was an inspiration. One of NASA's best planned missions ever. I miss the image drops. All the moons it visited were their own mini missions full of surprises & beauty. Maybe 1 day NASA will stop throwing money at the SpaceX black hole & return to long term planetary science missions again.