Cassini

I was listening on Radio 4 quite a few weeks ago to an interview with Michele Dougherty who was responsible for diverting Cassini off it’s preplanned route over to one of Saturn’s tiny moons. Not only astonishingly did Cassini view storms, fly between Saturn’s rings, and find 7 new moons but also found water vapour. 

What was staggeringly clever on her part is that she reads a magnetometer and back in 2005, by just reading black and white lines on a graph, persuaded the team at NASA to alter course, divert from a pre-planned route to go to one of Saturn’s smaller moons and consequently discovered a jet of water vapour pouring out of the south pole of Enceladus which means a possibility of microbial life underneath the ice. 

Cassini is due to end it’s mission this year by crashing into Saturn but what an adventure and listening to her was awe-inspiring! She has been named one of the world’s top 100 living scientists and in 2008 was awarded the Hughes medal.