Cassini Flyby: Spacecraft’s Closest Approach to Enceladus, Saturn’s Moon

The Cassini spacecraft had its closest approach to Enceladus, Saturn’s moon on Tuesday, March 27, 2012 11:30 am PDT. This was reported by NASA. The Cassini spacecraft flyby is at 74 kilometers or 46 miles closer to Enceladus. Cassini’s ion and mass spectrometer or Cassini plasma spectrometer instrument (CAPS) will help analyze the composition of the plume coming from Saturn’s moon, Enceladus.

Launched in 1997, the Cassini’s mission was to explore Saturn’s system. It is a cooperative venture of NASA, and its European and Italian counterparts, NASA said. Incidentally, this Cassini-Huygens mission received the 2012 National Air and Space Museum Trophy last March 21 for Current Achievement.

Aside from the analysis of Saturn’s and Enceladus’ environment, pictures would also be taken by the onboard cameras made by the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.