Cassini–Huygens, commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit, where it stayed from 2004 to 2017. The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.
The year 2001 in science and technology involved many events, some of which are included below.
The year 1998 in science and technology involved many events, some of which are included below.
New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth. It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System.
The year 2004 in science and technology involved some significant events.
The year 1997 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.
The year 1979 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is a laboratory in the Earth Sciences Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center affiliated with the Columbia University Earth Institute. The institute is located at Columbia University in New York City. It was named after Robert H. Goddard, American engineer, professor, physicist and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket.
The year 2005 in science and technology involved some significant events.
The New Frontiers program is a series of space exploration missions being conducted by NASA with the purpose of furthering the understanding of the Solar System. The program selects medium-class missions which can provide high science returns.
John Cromwell Mather is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite (COBE) with George Smoot.
The year 2007 involved many significant scientific events and discoveries, some of which are listed below.
The year 2009 involved numerous significant scientific events and discoveries, some of which are listed below. 2009 was designated the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations.
The year 2008 involved numerous significant scientific events and discoveries, some of which are listed below.
Discovery and exploration of the Solar System is observation, visitation, and increase in knowledge and understanding of Earth's "cosmic neighborhood". This includes the Sun, Earth and the Moon, the major planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, their satellites, as well as smaller bodies including comets, asteroids, and dust.
The exploration of Pluto began with the arrival of the New Horizons probe in July 2015, though proposals for such a mission had been studied for many decades. There are no plans as yet for a follow-up mission, though follow-up concepts have been studied.
David John Southwood is a British space scientist who holds the post of Senior Research Investigator at Imperial College London. He was the President of the Royal Astronomical Society from 2012–2014, and Director of Science and Robotic Exploration at the European Space Agency from 2001–2011. Southwood's research interests have been in solar–terrestrial physics and planetary science, particularly magnetospheres. He built the magnetic field instrument for the Cassini Saturn orbiter.
Planetary oceanography, also called astro-oceanography or exo-oceanography, is the study of oceans on planets and moons other than Earth. Unlike other planetary sciences like astrobiology, astrochemistry, and planetary geology, it only began after the discovery of underground oceans in Saturn's moon Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa. This field remains speculative until further missions reach the oceans beneath the rock or ice layer of the moons. There are many theories about oceans or even ocean worlds of celestial bodies in the Solar System, from oceans made of liquid carbon with floating diamonds in Neptune to a gigantic ocean of liquid hydrogen that may exist underneath Jupiter's surface.
Life Investigation For Enceladus (LIFE) was a proposed astrobiology mission concept that would capture icy particles from Saturn's moon Enceladus and return them to Earth, where they could be studied in detail for signs of life such as biomolecules.
