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Rhea flyby happens today ... March 2nd, 2010

Date: 02 Mar 2010
Member: John Moffitt


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Rhea Flyby (R-2) - March 2, 2010 Cassini swoops down to within about 100 kilometers of Rhea to "sniff" the moon. Particle and fields instruments will try to determine what is coming off Rhea. The last targeted flyby of Rhea happened in November 2005.
Hey kids, here it comes!

One of the alerts came up on my system this morning. I'd been looking forward to another pass of Rhea by that incredibly hard-working Saturn mission. I'm guessing we'll be getting some more cool data and maybe even a better photo in the coming week or so ... I've kind of lost track about how fast it takes the mission controllers to get this data into the feed.

To remind some of you, Rhea is the second largest moon after Titan which is 10 times bigger than every other Saturn moon combined. I have a nice photo of the surface from 620 kilometers up ... looks a lot like our moon. But if I could build a house in the Saturn system, it would be on Iapetus, the 3rd largest moon. This is the one used in the SF story, "Moon with a View." It is inclined and should have some wonderful views of Saturn twice in every orbit. Heck, if you live in that system, views of Saturn should be your primary reason for living. I live on Earth and I think this makes my top 10 list.

I'd like to think that this flyby is in honor of Texas Independence Day today!

Last Updated on 02 Mar 2010

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