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ONE LAST LOOK AT ARE
Voyager 2- a
technological
marvel - revealed new
knowledge about the
strange planet Saturn. But
how does this information
affect your life on earth?
by
Gene H. Hogberg
I
OTHER SPACE
s pectac–
u}ar
is in the books.
I n midsummer the
Voyager
2
spacecraft
swooped to within
63,000
miles
of Saturn.
It
sent back to earth
a steady stream of pictures and
new information abo u t the
complex planet, with its mar–
velous rin g system and cu rious
collection of satellites.
Since its August 25 clase
encounter with the huge gaseous
planet, the 1,800-pound automo–
bile-sized unmanned p r obe–
equipped with two television cam–
eras and nine other instruments-
22
has moved deeper into the solar
system.
If
all goes well,
Voy ager 2
is
scheduled to unveil sorne of the
wondrous mysteries of the planet
Uranus in early 1986 and Neptune
in mid-1 989.
Engineerin g Triumph
The targeting of
Voyager
2's
arri–
val at Saturn was awesomely pre–
cise. After a bíllion-mile journey,
the craft arrived at Saturn only
about 30 miles from its precise
aim point- a bull's-eye, for sure.
This is the equivalent, said one
scientist , to a golfer hitting a 500-
mile hole in one.
And talk about timing: After
four years of traversing the vast–
ness of space,
Voyager
arrived at
Saturn 2.7 seconds early!
Except for a temporary, puzz–
ling malfunction that developed
after the craft dipped through the
outer edge of Saturn 's expansive
ring plane, the probe performed
ftawless ly. Project scientists pro–
claimed that more than 99 percent
of the mission was accom–
plished.
Strange Moons
The
Voyager
2
probe had been
specifically programmed to exam–
ine aspects of the Saturnian sys–
tem not explored in depth when
its sister spacecraft ,
Voyager
1,
passed by in November, 1980.
Relayed television photos from
the atomic-power ed s·pacecraft
showed sorne of the Saturnian
moons to be even stranger than
the exper ts had expected.
O ne satellite, Iapetus, was
shown to be part black and part
white. Instruments on board the
probe indicated that the 900-mile–
wide moon is composed of about
40 percent rock- perhaps pitch–
like hydrocarbons- with the re–
mainder largely water ice.
The moon Enceladus, 300 miles
across, revealed a surface some–
what similar to that of the earth's
moon. Its surface is pockmarked
by craters, cracks and rills. Unlike
our moon, however, Enceladus ,
moving through the supercold
Saturnian system, is composed
entirely of ice.
Another moon, Tethys, appear-
The PLAIN TRUTH
J
)