To the fortieth anniversary of the Voyager 1 rendezvous with Saturn

40 years ago, Voyager 1 flew 124,000 kilometers from Saturn’s clouds. During the rapprochement, he took a number of the most detailed pictures of the rings and the atmosphere of the giant, as well as its satellites. Two decades later, the encircled giant was approached by the Cassini interplanetary station, which studied it in detail for many years. N + 1 offers you to compare images of the Saturn system during the Voyager 1 era and the Cassini era.

Saturn was one of the main targets of Voyager 1, which went into space in early September 1977. At that time, the configuration of the outer planets of the solar system was extremely successful, and the spacecraft was able to use the flights past them to gain speed. The probe reached Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and met with Saturn on November 12, 1980.

The initial service life of Voyager 1 was five years. However, its flight has been going on for 44 years, the device maintains contact with the Earth to this day. In 2012, the probe left the heliosphere and went into an interstellar medium, which it is now exploring with Voyager 2. Voyager 1 is now almost 152 astronomical units from Earth, the farthest man-made object from our planet.

At first glance, it may seem that the photos transmitted to Earth by Voyager 1 have little scientific value, but this is not the case. Back then, back in 1980, these were the clearest images of worlds that scientists had only vague ideas about, and it was thanks to them, as well as the data of onboard instruments, that planetologists were able to make many discoveries.
Titanium

The first close-ups of Titan were taken by Pioneer 11, the first spacecraft to visit Saturn’s system a year before Voyager 1, but they gave scientists little new data. It was only possible to clarify its mass and find out that the satellite is too cold to sustain life. So for Voyager 1, studying Titan was a key challenge.

The probe was able to determine the physical parameters of the satellite, as well as to study its dense, opaque atmosphere, finding layers of haze in it and determining its composition – it was rich in nitrogen and contained hydrocarbons. A quarter of a century later, Cassini, with the help of an extensive arsenal of scientific instruments, peeked under this haze and examined the surface of Titan. It turned out that it is very similar to the earth, only in the role of water on Titan are liquid methane and ethane.

Clouds and whirlwinds of Saturn

Despite the fact that there were fewer observable details in Saturn’s atmosphere than on Jupiter, Voyager 1 was still able to see vortices and jets in the atmosphere of the ringed giant, as well as latitudinal belts. The probe found that about 7 percent of the upper atmosphere of Saturn’s atmosphere is helium (compared to 11 percent in Jupiter’s atmosphere), which contradicted the expectations of scientists. The lower helium content indicated a possible mechanism for its redistribution in the atmosphere and sedimentation in its deeper layers. In addition, methane, ethane, phosphine (yes, the very potential biomarker of Venus!), As well as ammonia and a number of hydrocarbons were found in Saturn’s atmosphere. Voyager 1 also recorded auroras on Saturn. The northern hemisphere of the planet was darker than the southern, and at the north pole of the planet you could see what was remotely like a vortex.