This video is called The First 1000 Days: Cassini Explores The Saturn System.
From MSNBC:
Saturn mission goes into overtimeCassini and Enceladus: here.July 1, 2008
The multibillion-dollar Cassini orbiter has officially ended its four-year primary mission to Saturn — ushering in a two-year extended mission that will focus on the ringed planet’s mysterious moons.
The primary mission began when the spacecraft entered Saturnian orbit on July 1, 2004 (or June 30 in some time zones). Cassini produced the first pictures that pierced the haze surrounding Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon. The orbiter also sent down a European-built piggyback lander called Huygens, which beamed back pictures from Titan’s surface. The Cassini-Huygens observations revealed that Titan was laced with hydrocarbon seas and channels.
Cassini also discovered geysers of ice spewing from Enceladus, another Saturnian moon that may harbor subsurface oceans and perhaps even life.
Titan and Enceladus are the primary targets for Cassini’s extended mission, which NASA approved in April. Cassini will also monitor seasonal effects on Titan and Saturn, explore Saturn’s magnetic field and witness Saturn’s equinox on Aug. 11, 2009, when sunlight will pass directly through the plane of the planet’s rings.
The spacecraft’s new agenda has been dubbed the Cassini Equinox Mission in honor of the astronomical event, which occurs roughly every 15 years.
Planet Mercury: here.
Leiden astronomical archives: here.
