After 7 long years of travel, the Cassini probe will attempt to become the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn this evening at 10:30 PM EDT. The critial 96-minute orbit insertion burn must be perfect or it will either fly off into space or burn up in the atmosphere. This is assuming it survives the two ring-plane crossings it has to make as well without bumping into a pebble or an ice cube. Can you immagine getting hit by a slurpee going 25,000 kilometers per hour? I'm reminded of the Itchy and Scratchy episode where
scratchy gets sawed in half on Saturn's rings and his legs burn up in the atmosphere. There is already a very cool movie showing the surface of the moon Titan as it rotates.
These are the highest-res images ever taken of the surface, which is normally obscured by a thick atmosphere. Humans have never seen this stuff before! Its awesome. In December a lander will be dropped to the surface. Its designed to float, just in case it lands in a puddle of oily goo or something, and it has its own headlamp so it can look for controls. Keep an eye on
www.jpl.nasa.gov for mission details this evening. Sorry about this nerdy post. 7 years is a long time to wait...