What did the Cassini spacecraft discover on Saturn's moon Enceladus in 2005?

A thick nitrogen atmosphere similar to that of Titan Geysers of water vapor erupting from the south polar region, indicating a liquid water ocean beneath the ice Active volcanoes erupting sulfur dioxide similar to those on Io A magnetic field stronger than Saturn's own, deflecting the solar wind

What did the Huygens probe find when it landed on Saturn's moon Titan in January 2005?

A barren, crater-covered surface covered in water ice with no atmosphere A world with methane rain, rivers, and lakes — the only place beyond Earth with stable liquid on its surface A hot volcanic world with lava flows beneath a thick sulfur dioxide atmosphere A world covered in liquid water oceans beneath a thin hydrogen atmosphere

How did the Cassini mission end in September 2017?

It ran out of fuel and drifted out of Saturn's gravity into interstellar space It was deliberately plunged into Saturn's atmosphere to avoid contaminating potentially life-bearing moons like Enceladus It was captured by Titan's gravity and landed on the moon's surface It collided with a large ring particle and lost communication permanently

What did the New Horizons spacecraft reveal about Pluto during its flyby in July 2015?

A geologically dead, heavily cratered ball of rock and ice with no atmosphere A world with active cryovolcanoes erupting liquid water into space A geologically active world with nitrogen ice plains, water ice mountains up to 3,500 m tall, and a thin atmosphere A double planet where Pluto and Charon are separated by only 100 km

What Kuiper Belt Object did New Horizons fly past in January 2019 after its Pluto encounter?

Eris — the dwarf planet that triggered Pluto's reclassification Sedna — the most distant known member of the solar system Arrokoth — the most distant object ever closely explored by a spacecraft Makemake — a dwarf planet larger than Pluto in the Kuiper Belt

What is the DART mission, and what did it achieve in 2022?

It was a spacecraft that orbited an asteroid and confirmed that Earth-crossing asteroids contain gold It was a planetary defense test that deliberately crashed a spacecraft into asteroid Dimorphos and successfully changed its orbit It was a mission that sampled asteroid Bennu and returned material to Earth It was a radar satellite that detected and cataloged all asteroids larger than 100 meters

What is the Parker Solar Probe's mission goal?

To orbit the Sun at exactly the same distance as Earth and study space weather To fly closer to the Sun than any previous spacecraft and directly study the solar corona and solar wind To land probes on the Sun's surface to measure magnetic field strength directly To monitor solar flares and alert Earth of incoming coronal mass ejections

What did the OSIRIS-REx mission accomplish in 2023?

It successfully landed on asteroid Bennu and deployed a small rover to drill into the surface It returned samples from asteroid Bennu to Earth — the largest asteroid sample ever brought back It mapped all asteroids in the asteroid belt using a radar instrument It tested a new ion drive engine that will eventually carry astronauts to the asteroid belt

What is NASA's Juno spacecraft studying while orbiting Jupiter?

Whether Jupiter's moon Europa has a subsurface ocean suitable for life Jupiter's interior structure, magnetic field, atmosphere, and polar auroras to understand how the planet formed The composition of Jupiter's rings and the origins of its smaller inner moons Whether Jupiter is slowly shrinking due to gravitational contraction

What made the Rosetta mission's landing of the Philae probe on Comet 67P in 2014 historically significant?

It was the first spacecraft to collect a sample from a comet and return it to Earth It was the first time a spacecraft had ever landed on a comet It was the first spacecraft to detect organic molecules in a comet's coma It was the first spacecraft to intercept a comet entering the inner solar system for the first time