Thank you so much Cassini :)
Thanks to the universe, we are humans tremendously small and lucky to be a member of a huge galaxy. Of course, mankind barely scratched the surface of the last settlement, and never sent a man far from the moon. Several unmanned aerial vehicles have performed a wonderful task of revealing the neighboring solar system, but none of them came to the right of the spacecraft Cassini. The satellite, which has explored Saturn for 13 years, will enter Saturn's atmosphere at 4:55 am (Pacific Standard Time) on September 15th and will finish its task.
Cassini spacecraft and mini planetary probe Huygens probe probed the earth on Titan IVB rocket on October 15, 1997. Cassini traveled 3.5 billion km by the time Saturn arrived and finally, it came into Saturn's orbit on 30 June 2004. So it did the first approach flight to Saturn's satellite Titan and Dione in December of the same year without wasting time. In the following year, Huygens landed on Titan's surface and send images back from the sole landing for the first time in human history to the satellite in the outer solar system. Cassini photographed more than 453,000 images, collected scientific data of 635 GB, and named six of Saturn's satellites as they spent in the Saturn family.
The spacecraft that visited the Saturn system before Cassini was Voyager 1 and 2 in 1980 and 1981. A glimpse of the mystery of Saturn with a Voyager explorer, It surveyed this gas planet with the Cassini spacecraft. According to NASA, the number of papers written using Cassini collected data is close to 4,000.
For the past 13 years, thanks to the Cassini spacecraft, It was able to feel the planets 1.2 billion miles away. It gazed closely at the northern pole whirling Saturn, but maybe It was stared back. And discovered that Titan has a methane sea and that there is an atmosphere full of organic molecules that may form a component of a strange life form. In the last course of dive 22 times between Saturn's main body and ring, It took an unprecedented close-up image. Probably the most important thing is to discover and analyze the elements required for life in the underground sea under the surface of the ice-covered satellite Enceladus. Thanks to Cassini the next exploration seems to be a search for extraterrestrial life forms.
To those who write about Cassini, it is somewhat sad to tell goodbye, which is somewhat strange, it may be like saying goodbye to an old friend who has never looked up. Just, in this case, my friend was a mass of metal flying in the air, but I felt familiar like a man.
"Scientists who may not be living until the next Saturn's mission and those who may not be able to see the bottom of the dark sea of Titan, whether life exists under the ice that covers Enceladus "My heart aches," Eo science journalist JoAnna Wendel said. "I sympathize with scientists who did not know that life could exist in the world of the sea, and I myself feel uneasy about everything I do not have the opportunity to see if I die".
A science journalist, Shannon Stirone, who has reported Cassini for years, is proud of what the explorer left behind in future generations while sympathizing with Mr. Wendel's grieff.
"Cassini gave us a huge gift," Stirone said. "In the human history, the vision of a symbolic world that we could not enter, with Cassini's extinction we lament the end of the enormous attempt of humanity and praise the unparalleled legacy."
The greatest sense of loss is probably scientists who devoted their lives to Cassini's mission. Linda Spilker, who is a project scientist of the Cassini earlier, the team was involved in the same mission had said, "I came to the Cassini family." The annihilation of the spacecraft is also that the solid community of this bond begins to advance another way, but the contribution brought to the world will continue to live in Cassini's heritage.
"I told the world, but I am still wondering," Earl Maize, Cassini's program manager, said at a recent interview . "Thank you Cassini, good bye"
Cassini and the scientists who have worked on this mission once in a lifetime without rest. Thank you for reminding me that this pale - blue dot and the human beings there are so special.