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Hubble Telescope Shows Giant View of Saturn

Posted by simoniker on from the please-note-no-planet-jokes dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The giant planet, Saturn, offers the best Southern view of its spectacular rings only three times a century. The Hubble Space Telescope astronomers published this seasonal glimpse today, in infrared, ultraviolet and visible spectral bands. The Hubble also first penetrated the changing face of Saturn's biochemically rich moon, Titan, which will be the ambitious target of a landing mission - the Cassini-Huygens probe in 294 days (July 1, 2004). Because Titan changes both spatially and temporally based on observations of its atmosphere, speculation of what drives these variations derives from the moon's high content of methane and other organic building blocks."

34 comments

  1. No Uranus jokes? by Lane.exe · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Fine then, take all my fun away!

    I can't wait to see the results of the Cassini landing. Titan's been one of my favorite moons ever since junior high science. The presence of so many different chemicals that are found in few other places in the universe means its going to be an interesting experiment. Who knows what we'll learn?

    --
    IAALS.
    1. Re:No Uranus jokes? by bwhaley · · Score: 1

      Titan's been one of my favorite moons ever since junior high science.

      Man, a you have a favorite moon? And it has been the same since Jr. High?

      I wonder how many wedgies you got...

      --
      "I either want less corruption, or more chance
      to participate in it." -- Ashleigh Brilliant
    2. Re:No Uranus jokes? by VanillaCoke420 · · Score: 1

      One of my favourites was Io.

  2. I for one by Molina+the+Bofh · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I for one welcome our new giant rings overlords.

    And I hope they bring back my karma, wich surely will go to space with this posting.

    --

    -
    Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
  3. We're all methane on the inside. by Ignis+Flatus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because Titan changes both spatially and temporally based on observations of its atmosphere, speculation of what drives these variations derives from the moon's high content of methane and other organic building blocks."

    I'm 78% methane, myself.

    22% other.

    1. Re:We're all methane on the inside. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think Im 65% alchhol myswelf.

    2. Re:We're all methane on the inside. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >I'm 78% methane, myself.

      Yup, it sure smells that way!

  4. Rings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What sort of object would have to strike a planet to produce such a spectacular debris field?

    1. Re:Rings by noitalever · · Score: 2, Funny

      God

    2. Re:Rings by Vacuum+Sux · · Score: 5, Informative

      An object doesn't have to strike it to break up. If a comet or such come too close it can brake up just because of the gravitational forces. The Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet was a good example of this process.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, the profit overlords welcome you!
    3. Re:Rings by hplasm · · Score: 2, Funny

      The rings are bits of God? Whoa!

      --
      ...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
    4. Re:Rings by kalidasa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A nice big Kuiper object crossing the Roche limit and getting partially captured would probably do it, no?

    5. Re:Rings by pmz · · Score: 3, Funny

      ...debris field?

      No, it isn't debris. If you look closely, you will see Saturn's rings are made up of billions of white monoliths waiting for orders to attack the black monoliths of Jupiter. The last battle between the original fourth and fifth planets resulted in an astroid belt, but it is likely that Jupiter and Saturn will simply dissipate into a gas belt (not dissimilar to my beer gut...).

      --
      Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
    6. Re:Rings by elemental23 · · Score: 1

      Yes, millions upon millions of communion wafers ("This is my body...")

      --
      I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
    7. Re:Rings by hplasm · · Score: 1

      "...chow down, my children.."

      --
      ...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
    8. Re:Rings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is a little bit of god in all of us.

  5. When do we get pictures of... by Rheingold · · Score: 3, Funny

    Mt Winston, Mt Niles, Mt Rumfoord or that cute little Tralfamadorian Salo? /me dematerializes into chrono-synclastic infundibula

    --
    Wil
    wiki
    1. Re:When do we get pictures of... by kalidasa · · Score: 1

      Sorry, man, but there won't be more than a dozen readers who will get the allusion to Sirens of Titan (Vonnegut), and most of us won't have mod points today. Good one, though.

  6. Urectum by NanoGator · · Score: 1

    Just had an amusing thought of what the title of this article would have been if there was a pic of somebody stationed on the ISSS mooning the Hubble scope.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  7. Clean Mission? by annisette · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Great photos from our earth-orbit HUBBLE. When the CASSINI-HUYGENS sppacecraft reaches orbit the photography will be spectacular. It nice to know we will only be leaving batteries on TITAN. I only hope when the mission is compleate we will not deliver a nuclear payload to this GG.

    --
    I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
    1. Re:Clean Mission? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      Don't let Echelon find this. Keep it low profile.

      The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
      In a beautiful pea-green NORAD Juliet-Class Submarine:
      They took some primacord, and plenty of Satellite imagery
      Wrapped up in a Delta Force remailer.
      The Owl looked up to the Defcon VI TACSAT above,
      And sang to a small fissionable CipherTAC-2000,
      "O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
      What an Anonymous Black-Ops Information-Warfare Pussy you are,
      What an Enemy of the State you are!"
      Pussy said to the Owl, "You rogue siliconpimp,
      How charmingly sweet your crypto-anarchy!
      Oh! let us be married; too long we have plotted World Domination:
      But what shall we do for a secure-shell wire transfer?"
      They sailed away, for a year and a day,
      To the land where the INFOSEC Propaganda-mindwar grows;
      But there in Area51 an MKULTRA psych-ops Delta Force spook stood,
      With a SEMTEX Squib at the end of his nose, Squashed by operation PaperClip

  8. Temporally? by ttfkam · · Score: 2
    Because Titan changes both spatially and temporally...

    It changes temporally? Is this the "pertains to a temple" definition? Is Titan close to the temporal artery? Or is Titan a new religious dignitary? Or perhaps they meant Titan is in temporal (time-related) flux like in some Star Trek episode?

    Methinks someone needs a dictionary. I believe the poster meant, "Because Titan changes both spatially and in temperature..."
    --

    - I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
    1. Re:Temporally? by Red+Rocket · · Score: 4, Funny


      Or perhaps they meant Titan is in temporal (time-related) flux like in some Star Trek episode?
      Yes, that one. It is, in fact, in temporal flux. You are, too. Do you have a watch or a clock with a second hand? See how it moves like that? Spooky, huh?

      --
      - Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
  9. It's the quantum moon! by MarkusQ · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because Titan changes both spatially and temporally based on observations of its atmosphere...

    Isn't it a little big to show quantum effects like that? Or maybe we just need to turn the power down a tad on whatever we're using to observe its atomosphere.

    -- MarkusQ

  10. Looks pretty close... by Pirogoeth · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...to this...

    --
    Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
  11. Baxter by TrippyZ · · Score: 2, Informative

    For more information on this most famous of Saturns moons, read Titan by Stephen Baxter.

    Incidentally, I was somewhat poleaxed reading the opening chapter, which features a catastrophic shuttle reentry. This seemed most prescient.

  12. I didn't need a telescope by Spooge+Knight · · Score: 1

    WHEN I SHOT PAC!