The researchers behind NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn are relieved, and a bit mystified, to discover that the narrow gap between the giant planet and its rings is virtually devoid of stray particles.
The discovery comes from the bus-sized Cassini spacecraft’s first dive through the gap on April 26, which marked the beginning of the end for the 20-year mission.
“The region between the rings and Saturn is ‘The Big Empty,’ apparently,” Cassini project manager Earl Maize of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a news release.
