Saturn and its innermost ring on April 26, the first of 22 such encounters before it will plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere in September. What Cassini did not detect were many of the collisions of dust particles hitting the spacecraft as it passed through the plane of the rings.
Would be traveling at more than 70,000 miles per hour as it passed within 2,000 miles of the cloud tops, and a chance hit with a sand grain could be trouble. The analysis indicated that the chances of such a collision were slim, but still risky enough that mission managers .
Long-delayed opening of a vast new science museum downtown set for Monday, visitors will be able to stand underneath a suspended, 500,000-gallon aquarium tank and gaze at hammerhead and tiger sharks, mahi mahi, devil rays and other creatures through a 60,000-pound oculus,
