News Telecon: NASA to Sample Alien Ocean

Recorded on Monday, Oct. 26, 2015 at 11 a.m. PT (2 p.m. ET, 1800 UTC)

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will sample an extraterrestrial ocean on Wednesday, Oct. 28, when it flies directly through a plume of icy spray coming from Saturn's moon Enceladus. The agency held a news teleconference to discuss plans for and anticipated science results from the historic flyby.

The teleconference participants are:

-- Curt Niebur, Cassini program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington
-- Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California
-- Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL

[MattHumanPizza]

Enceladus has probably the greatest case for life off of Earth, with the least recognition.

[AMPwerx]

This was an awesome consultation. One thing particularly stands out...when Linda Spilker described Cassini's end-of-life,

"...as we go into Saturn's atmosphere... at that point, Cassini; the spacecraft itself, will be vaporized... you can imagine all the molecules of Cassini now spread across and being part of Saturn itself." [42:02]

Would this method of disposal of the spacecraft be considered an injection of foreign matter to the composition of Saturn? Albeit at the molecular level.
-A

[Streamtronics]

For me as a non-native English speaker this is really hard to understand, I mean REALLY hard. Audio quality is just not there, not sure if that's because phone lines are THAT bad in the US or if it gets worse through some sort of bad handling of the audio but ugh. Would be much appreciated if people could like, at least throw an EQ on something so the phone stuff is a bit easier to understand. I'd almost say... just do these over skype... I really love the video press conferences when scientists and engineers come together to talk about an exciting mission. But always having to focus as much as possible on what's being said over the whole 40 minutes is pretty exhausting and I often skip these phone conferences, participants on the phone are just too hard to understand for me.

[RaulDukeNeverDies]

isnt there a possibility that cassini's optical instruments could get damage when going through the plume?

[jamiboothe]

I am curious about the depths of the ocean and the currents. If the plums are only coming from the south pole, there is a physical reason for that. Can the surface features tell more about the liquid ocean underneath? And one more question, could the moon be a captured, super large Kuiper belt object?

[felixbachiller]

How much Delta V is there left on Cassini?

[jameswack]

'Science' is not the same word (or concept) as 'Opinion of "Belief''. Science can provide observations and data, it can be reviewed by others, it can be replicated or refuted, . Once ALL the data is presented, we have a much clearer picture (hypothesis) of Reality. And if others can offer a more convincing argument based on 'Science', they will be considered, but only through the rules of "Science'.

[Solo]

I don't think Enceladus can sustain life, due to low mass & gravity. The planet is exposed to vacuum of space.

[edgarcardenas]

#$#USA government barcode blue pen NASA owner #$ boss ET dough