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Cassini’s First Flight Through Saturn’s Rings Reveals Shocking Data

The Cassini spacecraft has just completed the first part of its grand finale as it flew through the narrow opening between Saturn and its many rings. The information transmitted back from the craft was somewhat unexpected.

Rachel Kowalski
Rachel KowalskiCybersecurity Analyst
3 min read
Cassini’s First Flight Through Saturn’s Rings Reveals Shocking Data

The Cassini spacecraft has just completed the first part of its grand finale as it flew through the narrow opening between Saturn and its many rings. The information transmitted back from the craft was somewhat unexpected. According to the data, this gap is free of almost anything. This is good news for Cassini’s engineers as will be far easier and safer for the craft to maneuver around.  But it’s puzzling at the same time as NASA’s scientists were expecting more.

Earl Maize is a project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and he says, “The region between the rings and Saturn is ‘the big empty’, apparently.” Cassini will stay the course, while the scientists work on the mystery of why dust level is much lower than expected.”  Scientists had already projected that there wouldn’t be any large particles in the gap by using images from Cassini and models of Saturn, but to find almost nothing was odd.

Because nothing had ever before flown through this gap, engineers ensured the antenna pointed in the direction of the oncoming particles in order to help shield the delicate instruments. However, as a consequence, the craft was disconnected from engineers back home.  So engineers couldn’t monitor the craft through the dive. But, Cassini’s Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument were just outside the shield to it picked up the hits of any particles as the dive was carried out. There were lots of pings detected as the craft moved outside the rings, but very few as it dived through the inside of the rings.

“It was a bit disorienting — we weren’t hearing what we expected to hear,” said William Kurth, RPWS team leader at the University of Iowa. “I’ve listened to our data from the first dive several times and I can probably count on my hands the number of dust particle impacts I hear.” The dive is part of Cassini’s Grand Finale that will end with the craft destroying itself by flying into the atmosphere of Saturn and burning to a crisp.

This image shows the surface of Saturn’s moon Iapetus. NASA via AP
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, passes in front of the planet in an image taken by the Cassini spacecraft. NASA via AP
Saturn’s moon, Mimas, lower left, is dwarfed by the planet’s rings. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via AP
An enhanced-color view of the southern latitudes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus featuring bluish “tiger stripe” fractures that rip across the south polar region. NASA/JPL-Caltech via European Pressphoto Agency
Saturn appears as a serene globe amid tranquil rings in this view from the Cassini spacecraft. In reality, the planet’s atmosphere is an ever-changing scene of high-speed winds and evolving weather patterns, punctuated by occasional large storms. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
The first high-resolution glimpse of the bright trailing hemisphere of Saturn’s moon Iapetus. The region appears heavily cratered, particularly in the north and south polar regions. Near the top of the mosaic, numerous impact features are visible, including the craters Ogier and Charlemagne. The most prominent topographic feature in this view, in the bottom half of the mosaic, is an impact basin, one of at least nine such large basins on Iapetus. NASA via AP

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Rachel Kowalski

Rachel Kowalski

Cybersecurity Analyst

Rachel Kowalski is the Cybersecurity Analyst at TrendinTech, where she covers vulnerabilities, ransomware, supply chain attacks, nation-state operations and the security rules shaping organizations in the United States and Europe. Before moving into journalism she worked as a threat intelligence analyst at a security vendor and later reported for CyberScoop and the security desk at Wired, covering the SolarWinds compromise and the ransomware wave that hit hospitals and pipelines. Rachel holds a Master of Science in Cybersecurity from the Georgia Institute of Technology and attends Black Hat and DEF CON in Las Vegas each year, where she follows research from the security community. She writes to make risks and countermeasures understandable to people who are not specialists.

All stories by Rachel Kowalski (214)