# @nasa on Instagram - **Type:** Image - **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CjvwATqrikB - **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/439537-nasa-instagram - **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/21da517324.jpg - **Posted:** 2022-10-15T19:28:09.000+00:00 - **Account Owner:** NASA (@NASA) — https://gondola.cc/NASA ## Caption Do you know what today is? 🎵 25 years ago, the Cassini spacecraft and Huygens lander probe launched, beginning the mission to study Saturn and its moons. The voyage to the planet took seven years, requiring four gravity assist maneuvers (a gravity assist is a technique that uses a planet to accelerate a spacecraft). Cassini-Huygens, a joint project between NASA, europeanspaceagency, agenziaspazialeitaliana, and nasajpl, entered an elliptical orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004; it was the first spacecraft to do so. Cassini’s 13-year-long investigation of the Saturn system—initially planned to be four years long, but extended twice—allowed us to observe Saturn for nearly half of its 30-year orbit around the Sun, seeing hexagonal cloud patterns around Saturn’s north pole and a long-lived storm that circled the planet’s northern hemisphere. Cassini also made extraordinary discoveries on Saturn’s moons, like ice volcanoes on Enceladus and hydrocarbon lakes on Titan. Though Cassini ended its exploration of Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017, after 20 years in space, the science gained through its efforts lives on. We continue to study the data Cassini-Huygens provided us, and lessons learned during the mission are being applied in planning our Europa Clipper mission. Image description: Saturn's northern hemisphere, as seen by the Cassini spacecraft in 2016. Saturn and its rings are muted shades of yellow-brown. Lit by the Sun, they stand out against the darkness of space. Saturn’s shadow is visible on the left-hand side of the rings. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #NASA #ESA #space #Cassini #Saturn #exploration #HappyAnniversary #universe #science #OTD ## Stats - **Views:** 0 - **Likes:** 1,160,133 - **Shares:** 0 - **Comments:** 2,467 ## Tags science, nasa, happyanniversary, universe, space, cassini, exploration, saturn, esa, otd ## Matching Posts - @nasa on Instagram — https://gondola.cc/posts/2841624-nasa-instagram - @nasa on Instagram — https://gondola.cc/posts/4750737-nasa-instagram - @nasa on Instagram — https://gondola.cc/posts/17139337-nasa-instagram --- Copyright (c) Gondola