BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Space Missions - Quiz *new article*

Here is an artist's rendering of the Ulysses spacecraft in the inner Solar System. The mission was a joint NASA/ESA project launched in 1990. It was to study the Sun at all latitudes. However during its extended mission it also encountered and collected data on a number of comets.

In order to get Ulysses out of the plane of the ecliptic to orbit the poles of the Sun, it needed more power than any launch vehicle could supply. So before studying the Sun Ulysses went to Jupiter for a gravity assist.

Galileo - named for the 16th-17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei, was a NASA mission. It was launched in October 1989 by Space Shuttle Atlantis, and arrived at Jupiter in December 1995. It was the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter. Previous missions had only done flybys. It was there when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke up and hit Jupiter.

Galileo then carried out the first flyby of an asteroid - 951 Gaspra. It also discovered the first asteroid moon which was around 243 Ida. The moon was named Dactyl. (Dactyls were creatures which inhabited Mount Ida in Greek mythology.)

Wow! I will never not be blown away when I see pictures taken out of Earth, I am even often blown away by the beauty of our planet!

Two interesting facts about India's Mars Orbiter Mission:

1. A very modern thing has an ancient name. The probe is also known by the acronym MOM - apple pie isn't involved. But it has a Hindi name too, Mangalyaan (Mars-craft), a name created from ancient Sanskrit.

2. The mission cost $74 million, which made it noticeably cheaper than the $100 million spent to make the movie Gravity.

On March 12, 2008, the Cassini probe made a close fly by of Enceladus, one of Saturn's icy moons. At its closest, Cassini flew within 50 km (30 mi) from the moon's surface in order to fly through the icy geyser plumes coming out of the fractures on the moon's southern pole. On this fly by Cassini found volatile gases, water vapor, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as organic materials, some 20 times denser than expected in the plumes.

Launched in October 1997, Cassini has been active for nearly 20 years and is set to complete its mission September 15, 2017, when the probe is scheduled to descend into Saturn's atmosphere, burning up in the process.

This is an image made from Huygens data as it landed on Saturn's moon Titan.

Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead, said

Fascinating and awesome !

Interesting news from the India Times a few weeks ago.

The Indian space agency ISRO had lost contact in 2009 with its first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1. Now NASA scientists have located it orbiting at about 200 km above the surface.

Here is an infographic explaining the primary mission of the Kepler spacecraft. Kepler is NASA's great planet hunter and it has found well over a thousand exoplanets and a large number of unconfirmed possibilities.