Birkbeck hosts Saturn scientists

Space scientists from across the globe have converged on Bloomsbury this week, as the UCL/Birkbeck Centre for Planetary Sciences plays host to the 48th Meeting of the Cassini Project Science Group.

Cassini–Huygens is a joint mission between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), currently studying the planet Saturn and its moons.

The spacecraft consists of two main elements: the NASA Cassini orbiter, named after the Italian-French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, and the ESA Huygens probe, named after the Dutch astronomer, mathematician and physicist Christiaan Huygens. It was launched on October 15, 1997 and entered into orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004. Cassini is the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn and the fourth to visit it.

Hundreds of scientists and engineers make up the team responsible for designing, building, flying and collecting data from the Cassini orbiter and Huygens probe. This week’s meeting is to discuss the mission's science results, as well as current and future operations of the spacecraft, and has been organised by Geraint Jones, Katie Joy, Sheila Kanani, and Anne Wellbrock.

Click here to learn more about Cassini and view images from the mission

Click here to learn more about Earth Sciences at Birkbeck