Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS), an instrument for measuring the thermal radiation emitted by a planetary body, is mounted on the Remote Sensing Platform of the Cassini orbiter, which has been exploring the Saturnian system since July 2004. The Cassini Huygens mission is providing an unprecedented and extraordinary opportunity to explore the gas giant Saturn, its icy moons and majestic rings, to a level of detail never achieved before.

The Oxford CIRS team, based in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics (AOPP) in the University of Oxford, is a data analysis group dedicated to the study of the atmospheres of Saturn and its mysterious moon, Titan. We utilise the wealth of superb data returned by the CIRS instrument to retrieve profiles of temperature, gas composition and distribution, with the goal of achieving a better understanding of these remote worlds.

The AOPP department has designed and built hardware for planetary missions exploring every planet and major satellite in our solar system, as far out as Saturn. Continuing this tradition, Oxford supplied the radiative cooler and cold focal plane assembly for CIRS.

This website provides more details of Oxford's role in the Cassini mission, as we dramatically improve our knowledge of the Saturnian system.

Created by L.N. Fletcher January 2006.