Moons with the Voyager 1 imagery, and we wanted to make sure we got some new On what we had seen with Voyager 1," Miner recalls. "We made several adjustments to the planned observations by Voyager 2 based They discovered that its biggest moon, Titan, hidesīeneath a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere resembling the early Earth's. They learned Saturn had more moons, more rings, more heat andįaster winds than anyone had known. So, scientists learned much about the Saturn system by the time Voyager 2 got there. Pioneer 11 got the first close look at the spectacularly ringed planet, then Voyager 1 However, while Voyager 2 was on its way toward Saturn, When that spacecraft was launched in 1977, no Miner was assistant project scientist for Project Voyager as Voyager 2Īpproached Saturn 20 years ago. "Whenever we investigate a planet inĭetail," he says, "we discover answers to a lot of questions, but we inevitably raise even more new questions." Worked on missions to Saturn and six other planets. Ellis Miner, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1965, has Scientists will use them to answer questions remaining from the earlier explorations.ĭr. Cassini will become the first craft to orbit Saturn, and a half year after arrival, its piggybacked Huygens probe will descend onto Saturn's moon Titan. The Cassini-Huygens mission of NASA and the European Space Agency will No spacecraft has reached Saturn since then, but one is Sought answers to questions raised by two other spacecraft that had visited Saturn in the When NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft sped past Saturn in August 1981, scientists Spacecraft is speeding toward the beautifully ringed planet. Twenty years after the most recent spacecraft encounter with Saturn, another
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