June 12, 2023  Southwest Research Institute’s Christopher Glein, a planetary scientist and geochemist at the San Antonio-based institute, has been studying Saturn’s tiny moon Enceledus for 15 years.  Glein has already been part of a team that used the Webb telescope in the first round of research projects given coveted access to the instrument.  The largest and most powerful space telescope developed, the Webb telescope was launched into space in December 2021.  Saturn has 146 moons, 62 of which were discovered in 2023.  The moons range in size from larger than the planet Mercury—the massive Titan—to as small as a sports arena.  Enceladus is just 314 miles across—small enough to fit within the length of the United Kingdom.  Saturn’s moons differ greatly in their composition, from icy giants with subsurface oceans to small, heavily cratered rocky worlds.  Titan and Enceladus are the only two moons viewed as having the chemistry to possibly host life, with Enceladus being more favorable.  Enceladus’ water plume holds an intriguing chemical clue.  “We call it Cold Faithful—like Old Faithful,” the famous geyser in Yellowstone Park, Glein said.  “This plume is basically giving us free samples of Enceladus’ ocean, which can allow us to study its chemistry.”  What is known today about Enceladus is mostly from NASA’s Cassini mission, Glein said.  The Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997, spent 20 years in space—13 of them exploring Saturn.  When Cassini’s fuel supply was spent, it was directed to plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017.  It continued sending data until it vaporized, according to NASA.  Cassini first started collecting data on Enceladus and its largest south pole geyser—Cold Faithful—in 2005, Glein said. The spacecraft proved that Enceladus is an extremely active moon that hides a global ocean of salty liquid water beneath its crust.  The jets of icy particles it spews into space from cracks in that crust are laced with simple organic chemicals.  Some of that water falls back to Enceladus, while some of it escapes, forming one of Saturn’s vast rings.  Lindsey Carnett  https://sanantonioreport.org/southwest-research-institute-james-webb-space-telescope-saturn-moon/ 

Cassini–Huygens, commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites.  The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.  Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit, where it stayed from 2004 to 2017.  The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.  Launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur on October 15, 1997, Cassini was active in space for nearly 20 years, with 13 years spent orbiting Saturn and studying the planet and its system after entering orbit on July 1, 2004.  The voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (April 1998 and July 1999), Earth (August 1999), the asteroid 2685 Masursky, and Jupiter (December 2000).  The mission ended on September 15, 2017, when Cassini's trajectory took it into Saturn's upper atmosphere and it burned up in order to prevent any risk of contaminating Saturn's moons, which might have offered habitable environments to stowaway terrestrial microbes on the spacecraft.  The mission was successful beyond expectations–NASA's Planetary Science Division Director, Jim Green, described Cassini-Huygens as a "mission of firsts" that has revolutionized human understanding of the Saturn system, including its moons and rings, and our understanding of where life might be found in the Solar System.  Cassini's planners originally scheduled a mission of four years, from June 2004 to May 2008.  The mission was extended for another two years until September 2010, branded the Cassini Equinox Mission. The mission was extended a second and final time with the Cassini Solstice Mission, lasting another seven years until September 15, 2017, on which date Cassini was de-orbited to burn up in Saturn's upper atmosphere.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens 

Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, FRS (1629–1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution.  In physics, Huygens made seminal contributions to optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he studied the rings of Saturn and discovered its largest moon, Titan.  As an engineer and inventor, he improved the design of telescopes and invented the pendulum clock.  In 1657, inspired by earlier research into pendulums as regulating mechanisms, Huygens invented the pendulum clock, which was a breakthrough in timekeeping and became the most accurate timekeeper for almost 300 years until the 1930s. The pendulum clock was much more accurate than the existing verge and foliot clocks and was immediately popular, quickly spreading over Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Huygens#Biography   

bastille  The noun is derived from Middle English bastile, bastel (“fortification for attack mounted on a barge or wheels; projecting part of a fortification, bastion, turret; fortified encampment of a besieging army; structure carrying armed men on an elephant’s back; (figuratively) refuge, shelter; protector”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman bastile, bastille, Middle French bastille, and Old French baastel, basstel (“fortification; fortified tower; temporary fortification constructed for attack or defence; (small) castle or fortress”) (modern French bastille; compare Medieval Latin bastīle), from bastide (“fortification; fortress”) with the ending modified after nouns ending in -ille (from Latin -īle (suffix forming place names)).  Sense 2.1 (“jail or prison, especially one regarded as mistreating its prisoners”) is from the Bastille in Paris, France.  Known in full as the Bastille Saint-Antoine, it was a former fortress used as a prison by the French monarchy in the 17th and 18th centuries.  The Bastille was stormed by a crowd on 14 July 1789 at the start of the French Revolution and later demolished, becoming an important symbol for the French Republican movement.  Sense 2.2 (“workhouse”) was possibly popularized by the English politician William Cobbett (1763–1835) who opposed the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (4 & 5 William IV, chapter 76; often called the “New Poor Law”).  This Act made relief or welfare for poor people only available through workhouses, and ensured that the working conditions were harsh so that only the truly destitute would apply for relief.  The verb is derived from the noun.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bastille#Verb 

July 14 is Bastille Day, the national day of France which commemorates the storming of the Bastille—a key event in the French Revolution—that took place on this day in 1789, and celebrates the unity of the nation.  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2696  July 14, 2023