Scientists are being dazzled by the sharp, detailed images of the rings of Saturn transmitted to Earth soon after the U.S. Cassini spacecraft began orbiting the giant planet. They say that understanding the rings can expand our knowledge of the evolution of the solar system and other planetary systems.

After becoming the first spacecraft to enter Saturn's orbit, Cassini sent back this image of a portion of the planet's rings. It was taken by the spacecraft's narrow angle camera and shows the dark, or unlit, side of the rings. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org . Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Saturn's shimmering rings have intrigued astronomers for centuries, but no one has seen them as closely and sharply as Cassini has just seen them.

After successfully entering orbit around Saturn, the spacecraft immediately began taking pictures from above the rings as they were backlit by the sun. Then it descended through them for images from the illuminated side. It was the best opportunity the spacecraft will get in its four year mission because it will never be any closer.

A deputy chief of the U.S. space agency NASA, Ed Weiler, revealed the photographs just hours after Cassini began transmitting them.

"Citizens of Earth, I would like to present the majestic rings of Saturn," he said.

The highly detailed images have stunned Saturn ring specialists like Carolyn Porco, the head of the Cassini imaging team from the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. In her words, they are utterly remarkable in their beauty and clarity.

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Astronaut Mike Fincke, left, Expedition 9 science officer and flight engineer, and cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, commander, pose with their Russian Orlan spacesuits on the International Space Station. They have been serving as test subjects in some onboard experiments, while preparing for an upcoming spacewalk using those suits. (NASA/JSC)

If the problem remains and another gyro fails, jet thrusters would have to be employed to position the station, using precious fuel.

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Software on a NASA spacecraft recently made a scientific observation on its own without human interaction. The Space Technology 6 Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment captured images of Antarctica's Mount Erebus and detected volcanic activity.

The software, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., controls the Earth Observing-1 spacecraft. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md, manages the satellite. The software examines pictures from the Hyperion spectrometer, an instrument highly sensitive to heat released from molten lava.

After taking an image of Erebus, the software detected heat from the lava lake at the summit of the volcano and reprogrammed the camera to take more pictures. News of the detection was rapidly transmitted to scientists. Typically, it could take months to learn a remote volcano was active and scientists normally would need to take measurements at the volcano to detect the same type of event. Researchers at JPL and Goddard will test the Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment on Erebus and other volcanoes for the next several months.

"Autonomous Sciencecraft is a giant leap toward a thinking spacecraft," said Dr. Steve Chien, JPL senior technologist for the software. "The software is the first use of autonomy allowing the spacecraft to make decisions without waiting for commands from scientists. It can capture short-lived science events that otherwise would have been missed."

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