Does it make sense to point the cameras on the Cassini spacecraft toward Comet 17P/Holmes?
Nov. 6, 2007 First of all, quite a few of the project members have been following Comet 17P/Holmes, and are very excited about this unique astronomical event. However, there are three principal difficulties with pointing Cassini’s cameras at Comet 17P/Holmes. First, it is quite close to the Sun as seen from Cassini. We cannot point our cameras very close to the Sun or sunlight will damage the instruments. Comet 17P/Holmes may be far enough from the Sun to target it – just barely – in about a week, but stray light from the Sun may make it impossible to take any useful measurements. Second, Cassini is about six times as far away from Comet 17P/Holmes as the Earth is. Remember, Saturn is nearly 10 times as far from the Sun as the Earth, and the comet is still in the inner solar system. Ground-based telescopes and orbiting platforms like Hubble are much closer than Cassini is, and generally more able to conduct better science. Third, since our spacecraft carries twelve instruments with twe
