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Cassini Greets Jupiter
Dr. Zowie writes "The Cassini probe, despite
predictions of doom
on launch and on its
Earth flyby, appears to be working just fine as it wends its way outward toward Saturn. It's currently flying by Jupiter for an additional gravity assist.
Today, the imaging team released their first high ('better than Hubble') resolution color images of Jupiter. I can't wait to write a Jovian screensaver..."
Halfway down that last page is a sweet movie (GIF or QT) showing time-lapse clouds around the Great Red Spot on successive rotations of our largest planet.
99 sites of stuff on the web,
99 sites on the web,
Slashdot one down,
into the ground,
98 sites of stuff on the web.
I checked out that anti-Cassini website under the predictions of doom link, and found that the author's primary complaint was that the 74 pounts of Plutonium might crash into the Earth. Maybe over Africa.
Let's see. Africa has 6,900,000 square miles or so. Seventy-four pounds of plutonium is about 34,000 grams. Assuming that Cassini broke up and only affected a third of Africa (2.3 million square miles), that's 0.014 grams of plutonium per square mile.
Frankly, I would think that the author of that website would be happy to have something that was dangerous and already here to be shipped out into eternity.
Some people just don't think.
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
Ok, the plutonium is gone.
Now let's tell those green folks about how gravity assist steals energy from Jupiter, and may cause Jupiter to fall into Earth's orbit!
I'm sure we can prove it with a few strategic Newtonian equations.
The Cassini Orbiter's mission consists of delivering a probe (called Huygens, provided by ESA) to Titan, and then remaining in orbit around Saturn for detailed studies of the planet and its rings and satellites. The principal objectives are to: (1) determine the three-dimensional structure and dynamical behavior of the rings; (2) determine the composition of the satellite surfaces and the geological history of each object; (3) determine the nature and origin of the dark material on Iapetus' leading hemisphere; (4) measure the three-dimensional structure and dynamical behavior of the magnetosphere; (5) study the dynamical behavior of Saturn's atmosphere at cloud level; (6) study the time variability of Titan's clouds and hazes; and, (7) characterize Titan's surface on a regional scale. The spacecraft was originally planned to be the second three-axis stabilized, RTG-powered Mariner Mark II, a class of spacecraft developed for missions beyond the orbit of Mars. However, various budget cuts and rescopings of the project have forced a more special design, postponing indefinitely any implementation of the Mariner Mark II series. Cassini is currently planned to take a similar tour of the solar system as did Galileo, referred to as a VVEJGA (Venus-Venus-Earth-Jupiter Gravity Assist) trajectory. Several opportunities exist for Cassini to make observations of asteroids, although exact encounters remain to be determined after the spacecraft has been launched as it depends on the launch date. Current plans call for an arrival in June 2004. Shortly after entering orbit around Saturn, Huygens will separate from the Cassini orbiter and begin its entry into the atmosphere of Titan. Cassini is then expected to make at least 30 loose elliptical orbits of the planet, each optimized for a different set of observations. Cassini's instrumentation consists of: a radar mapper, a CCD imaging system, a visible/infrared mapping spectrometer, a composite infrared spectrometer, a cosmic dust analyzer, a radio and plasma wave experiment, a plasma spectrometer, an ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, a magnetospheric imaging instrument, a magnetometer, an ion/neutral mass spectrometer. Telemetry from the communications antenna as well as other special transmitters (an S-band transmitter and a dual frequency Ka-band system) will also be used to make observations of the atmospheres of Titan and Saturn and to measure the gravity fields of the planet and its satellites
appears to be working just fine as it wends its way outward toward Saturn
Should have said: appears to be working just fine while it basically wends its way outward toward Saturn" Otherwise, you'd get a Wend without While error.
Have you read my journal today?
Um. None of the forcasted cancers are ever going to show up, since the uncontrolled reentry of Cassini into the earth's atmosphere was a prerequsite for the cancers to happen, and Cassini didn't reenter the atmosphere. Or weren't you paying attention?
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
With all due respect, I wonder how even 120 people could contract fatal cancers. I guess, if someone used a linear, no-threshold model of radioactivity's effects and applied it to the entire population of the world. But realistically, the biggest danger from those RTGs was if one re-entered and hit you on the head. It wouldn't be pretty, but it wouldn't be cancer, either.
I remember how the media really pushed the controversy in the days leading up to Cassini's launch. CBS had footage of this one poor girl (she may have been around 14), crying in absolute terror as Cassini launched because she honestly believed all life on the planet was about to end. That was the product of the scare-mongering that people pushed. I wonder how many people worked themselves into genuine stress-induced problems because of the alarmist hand-wringing by the anti-nuke crowd.
Cassini: I beg your pardon, but you wouldn't happen to be Jupiter, would you?
Jupiter: Why, yes.
Cassini: Nice to meet you! I'm Cassini.
*sniff* You know, these probes make the solar system a kinder, gentler place to live... chokes ya up, don't it?
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Hubble actually does have the capability of imaging planets in the solar system. In fact, that's exactly what the WF/PC2 (Wide Field/Planetary Camera gen. 2) is for. There are some stunning images that Hubble has taken of several solar system bodies, including the Shoemaker-Levy 9 encounter with Jupiter.
-NOC Monkey (OOK!) Experience is what allows you to recognize a mistake the second time you make it.
The actual danger of a Cassini probe accident to a given person in the probe's disaster area is similar to moving to Denver for a year. These anti-nuke guys simply hype up the fact that plutonium is toxic without taking into account the fact that the toxicology of a single particle is minute and one has to have a significant amount inhaled in order to suffer any significant result. I did a report in college on this particular matter (Cassini had not yet been launched), and my report, which I no longer have, concluded that Cassini posed no significant threat whatsoever and demonstrated that my findings were backed up by the findings of several of the less-rabid environmental protection groups.
As a matter of fact, one is far more likely to die from a meteor strike than from a failed mission with a thermo-nuclear battery.
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither. - Thomas Jefferson