Los Angeles: NASA has announced its plan to capture closer images of the two moons of Saturn through its spacecraft next week.
The spacecraft Cassini will have a closer look at Saturn`s moons Dione and Titan, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.
The Titan fly-by, planned for Monday, will take Cassini to within 7,500 km of the moon`s surface to enable the spacecraft`s camera to peer through Titan`s haze-shrouded atmosphere, NASA`s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a release Friday.
Wednesday, Cassini is to take another fly-by over Dione by plunging to within 500 km of the moon`s surface, the release said.
The twin fly-bys combine to last a day and a half, Xinhua reported.
Space scientists hope the fly-by over Titan would enable the capture of high-resolution pictures of the Belet and Senkyo areas on Titan`s surface, darker regions around the equator that ripple with sand dunes.
It will be Cassini`s second close encounter with Dione. The previous fly-by took place in October 2005.
Cassini will use its magnetometer and fields and particles instruments to see if it can find evidence of activity at Dione, according to the laboratory.
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