NASA to hold Google+ Hangout on Saturn on Wednesday

Zee Media Bureau/Salome Phelamei

Washington: The US space agency, NASA will host a Google+Hangout at 12:30 pm PST (3:30 pm EST) on Wednesday, December 4, to discuss the Saturn’s images taken by the agency’s Cassini spacecraft. According to NASA, the hangout will also look ahead to the next few years of the Cassini mission. The event, which will feature a four-member panel will also be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency’s website. The panelists are: - Kunio Sayanagi, Cassini imaging team associate, Hampton University, Virginia. -Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead, Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado. -Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, NASA`s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California. -Earl Maize, Cassini program manager, JPL NASA scientists will answer queries asked by reporters and public, LIVE on air on the Google+ Hangout event page, in the chat box on the Ustream site and via Twitter using the hashtag #askCassini. According to NASA, the Google+ Hangout will be available at: http://bit.ly/askcassini. Cassini-Huygens spacecraft is a flagship-class NASA-ESA-ASI named after astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens. The robotic spacecraft sent to the Saturn system is one of the largest, heaviest and most complex interplanetary spacecrafts ever built. The spacecraft entered into orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004. Since then, it has studied the planet and its many natural satellites. Launched on October 15, 1997 on a Titan IVB/Centaur, Cassini is the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter orbit.