AstronomyCast 227: The Big Dipper, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

AstronomyCast 226: Weather, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

AstronomyCast 225: Ice in Space, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

AstronomyCast 224: Orion, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

AstronomyCast 223: The Transit of Venus, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

AstronomyCast 222: The Decadal Survey, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

AstronomyCast 221: Geomorphology, by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay

It’s hard to imagine a more famous astronomer than Galileo Galilei. He’s widely recognized as the very first person to point a telescope at the skies and then study what he saw. Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and much more. But it was his controversial stance on the nature of the Solar System that brought him into conflict with the church.

And now we finish our trilogy of Saturnian astronomers and missions with a look at the Dutch astronomer and mathematician, Christiaan Huygens. It was Huygens who discovered Titan, and figured out what Saturn’s rings really are, so it makes sense that a probe landing on the surface of Titan was named after him.

Last week we talked about the Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini. This week we’ll talk about the mission that shares his name: NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft. This amazing mission is orbiting Saturn right now, sending back thousands of high resolution images of the ringed planet and its moons.