A TRAVELLER arrived at Saturn in May, ready to write the book on the planet’s intricate rings, stormy atmosphere and many moons.
Within weeks, the space probe Cassini revealed that Saturn’s outermost large moon, Phoebe, is a would-be comet captured by the gas giant’s gravity. Had it slipped Saturn’s grasp, Phoebe would have come close enough to the sun to start evaporating, growing a coma and tail that would have blazed far brighter than Hale-Bopp.
On 1 June, Cassini passed a milestone in its mission, flying through a gap in Saturn’s rings before going into orbit. A close-up of the…
