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what's up for march bright saturn and a

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faint asteroid named lutesha

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hello and welcome i'm jane houston jones

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at nasa's jet propulsion laboratory in

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pasadena california

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this month saturn is at opposition which

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is when the sun is on one side of the

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earth and saturn is directly on the

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opposite side

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saturn is brightest at opposition and

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it's also as close to earth as it ever

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gets in its orbit you can view saturn

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all night long now it rises in the east

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at sunset and sets in the west at dawn

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if you face east in the late evening you

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can see two planets near the distinctive

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constellation leo

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first look nearly overhead that reddish

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object you see up there is mars

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closer to the horizon the bright golden

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hued object is saturn

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saturn is well placed for viewing from

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now through july

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this year saturn's rings are slightly

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inclined they were tilted four degrees

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in january they'll dip to nearly edge on

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in june and then tip up to 10 degrees by

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the solar system was a violent place to

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start with there were many crashes in

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which small bodies broke into pieces and

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reformed the study of asteroids helps us

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understand a lot more about the early

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solar system history

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of the millions of asteroids in our

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solar system only a few have been

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observed up close

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near the middle of the constellation leo

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is the challenging to see and faint main

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belt asteroid 21 lutetia

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you'll need a good star chart and a

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medium to large telescope plus dark

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skies to glimpse this small 12th

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magnitude asteroid

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if you don't see lutetia that's okay

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because the european space agency's

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rosetta spacecraft will pay its second

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visit to this interesting object in july

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passing within three thousand kilometers

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of the asteroid

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rosetta had its first look at lutetia in

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january of 2007. the osiris camera

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imaged the asteroid passing through its

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field of view during the spacecraft's

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approach to mars for a gravity assist

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rosetta's instruments will collect

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enough information to create a resume of

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the asteroids past

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where it was born how it got started on

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its asteroid career and if there were

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any mid-course corrections

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the cassini spacecraft has been studying

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saturn its rings and moons since

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arriving in 2004

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cassini's seven-year solstice mission

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extension to the year 2017 presents an

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opportunity to follow the seasonal

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changes of an outer planet all the way

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to its summer

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during its 155 orbits around saturn

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including 55 flybys of the moon titan

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cassini will fly by the icy moon

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enceladus 11 more times

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you can learn more about cassini and

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the nasa contribution to esa's rosetta

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mission can be found at