Today in the history of astronomy, Cblockini arrives after a seven-year journey.
The Cblockini-Huygens spacecraft shot this image of Saturn on March 27, 2004, on its way to its home in orbit around the planet. Credt: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
On July 1, 2004, the Cblockini-Huygens mission, a collaborative undertaking by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency, successfully reached Saturn. The spacecraft had launched Oct. 15, 1997, and had received gravitational blockists from flybys of Venus, Earth, and Jupiter. A 96-minute orbit-insertion burn slowed the spacecraft enough for it to be captured by Saturn’s gravity, which enabled its long-term exploration of the planet and its moons. Cblockini’s arrival initiated a 13-year endeavor that surpblocked the knowledge of the gas giant previously gleaned by other missions’ flybys; new revelations included liquid methane seas on Titan, a global ocean with signs of hydrothermal activity on Enceladus, and unprecedented detail about Saturn’s rings. The mission concluded with a “Grand Finale” in September 2017, involving a series of dives between Saturn and its rings, before the orbiter was intentionally plunged into the planet to avoid potential contamination of its moons.
