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The most amazing thing for me was that Cassini (1.50bn kms) is 300 million miles away from Saturn (1.20bn kms), but still it is orbiting Saturn. Is this just t
by pserwylo 14y ago
The most amazing thing for me was that Cassini (1.50bn kms) is 300 million miles away from Saturn (1.20bn kms), but still it is orbiting Saturn.
Is this just the furthest point of its elliptical orbit? Or is it typical of how we send spacecraft to orbit other planets? Or is it a typo?
I ask because according to the infographic, our communications satellites are at a tiny 35,000 kms, whereas 300 million kms is twice the distance from Earth to the Sun...
- jessedhillon 14y agohttps://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mass+of+saturn+in+earth+masses https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mass+of+satu... Saturn is 95x more massive than Earth.
- T-hawk 14y agoThat is wrong. Cassini's apogee (aposelene) is inside the orbit of Iapetus, which is 3.5m km from Saturn. Cassini does not fly by Iapetus in its tours; the orbit was adjusted to do so once but will not happen again. The graphic is representing the distance of Saturn at its closest point to Earth (as it does with Mars and Venus), but the distance of Cassini at its farthest point from Earth. The latter is larger by the diameter of Earth's orbit which is your 300m km difference.
- pserwylo 14y agoThanks. I didn't think it added up :)