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Space mission leads scientists to "lord of the rings"
By Jasmine A. Willis
On March 20, 2013
The Earth science lecture series welcomed a rocket scientist from NASA on March 14 in the
Bulger Communication Center North to talk to students, faculty and staff about the Cassini
Mission to Saturn.
The presentation, titled "Lord of The Rings: The Cassini Mission to Saturn and Its Moons," was
hosted by Rosaly Lopes, senior research scientist and deputy manager of the planetary science
section of NASA's jet propulsion laboratory
The Cassini Mission started its Saturn Tour in 2004, and has completed 74 orbits around the
planet, as well as 44 fly-bys of the moon Titan. The mission is to document Saturn and Titan to
see how their storm systems change from winter to summer.
Lopes said she is really excited about the mission, and that it will be remembered by many.
"We are the first orbiters of Saturn, and we have great discoveries of Titan to tell us that Titan is
a bit like Earth," Lopes said.
Lopes was the third speaker to participate in the Jack Mack Lecture in Astronomy and Planetary
Science.
Kevin Williams, professor of Earth science and science education, hosted the event in his GES
101 class, and invited the GES 131 class to join, as well as anyone else on campus.
Williams said the visit was sponsored by the NASA Outer Planets Colloquium Series, the
department of Earth and sciences, science education and the Buffalo State Astronomy Club. He
said he was familiar with the work that Lopes was involved with and held this event during his
class time to benefit a larger audience.
"Having Dr. Lopes speak about her own experiences and some of the amazing results of the
Cassini Mission help to give real-world applications and examples of topics we talk about in
class," Williams said. "Specifically, we are currently talking about volcanoes in class, so Dr.
Lopes' examples of volcanoes on other solar system bodies is something that I can now fold into
the class discussion."
Lopes said she is trying to keep funding going until at least 2017, so her mission can document
the discoveries in their entirety.
"When the mission is really working, and we are discovering new things, it seems like a waste of
money not to get more to help this mission survive," Lopes said.
According to Lopes, the mission is so big and complex that it is hard to keep up with every
single part of it.
She said that NASA has done other seasonal change missions to planets such as Mars and Venus,
and that in the 1970s they took two spacecrafts to Saturn. However, she said they decided to go
more in depth with The Cassini Mission.
Lopes said she and her team have fun with naming their discoveries after The Lord of The Rings,
since Saturn is often called The Ring Planet. The Titan dunes, for example, are called Titan
Doom Mons.
Lopes and her team hope to be able to document the solstice by 2017 and complete their mission.
Jasmine Willis can be reached by email at willis.record@live.com.
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