Slashdot Mirror
Cassini Alters Path. Phoebe Now In Sight!
Anonymous Explorer writes "This week the Cassini-Huygens
Spacecraft finally entered
the Saturn system and made its first
main-engine burn in five years in preparation of for the Phoebe flyby. This long
journey
has been one filled with much promise and peril. Launched in 1997,
Cassini is expected to have a rendezvous with
the moon Phoebe
on June 11. For those of us who are lazy, that's just a tad under two
weeks away. After the Phoebe flyby, it's on to the ringed planet, with an
anticipated July 1
ground orbit insertion. The ESA's
Huygens probe will descend into the atmosphere of Titan a few months
after Cassini is inserted into orbit. This mission
promises to be
one that brings a very psychedelic and beautiful area of our solar
system into clearer focus. This multinational
mission is one the
most ambitious scientific explorations yet undertaken and promises some
truly otherworldly images in the near future. With 31 moons/natural
satellites thus far discovered orbiting Saturn, there should be a lot
to keep us occupied. Anyone else excited about the journey
to a ringed world? Lets all enjoy this ride. It promises to
be a unique one as much as for the scenery as for the science. Informal
discussion regarding the Cassini-Huygens mission can be found at
#cassini on irc.freenode.net."
Map and Images of Titan from Hubble Space Telescope
Nasa Titan Photojournal
Saturnian Satellite Fact Sheet
Phoebe best image so far, from Voyager2 in 1981!
Do you need a website upgrade?
It's gonna be nice to see a photo-intensive orbiting mission to one of the big gas giants. The Galileo orbiter for Jupiter had an antenna problem that greatly reduced the imaging volume.
However, based on Voyager flybys, Saturn's moons are not quite as photogenic as Jupiter's. Titan is covered with a thick feature-poor haze and most of the other moons are too small to have many of the interesting tidally-caused features of the Jupiter moons. But there are still some interesting features on some of the moons.
And, Cassini will drop a probe into Titan's atmosphere that should return some interesting images and data. Titan may have a methane ocean and the Titan probe may possibly land in it and float for a few hours. The ocean may have giant waves because the gravity is so weak compared to Earth, similar to the way that sand-dunes are easier to make on Mars because of the lower gravity there. Things can get taller and weirder under low gravity. It would be the first time liquid could be seen from the surface of another world (aside from the Apollo Tang drippings).
Table-ized A.I.
I think astronomers realize the importance of beauty when trying to get public support. Check out the Hubble Heritage project. The main reason for this project is to take pretty astronomy pictures.
This doesn't mean they're dangerous. They are all quite capable of surviving reentry and impact, and in one case (the NASA Nimbus B1 satellite in 1968) an RTG was recovered and actually reused in another spacecraft!
Furthermore even if one did break up in the atmosphere and somehow vapourise despite being made in a ceramic form that would stay in a few lumps, it would cause bugger all damage. Plutonium isn't especially radioactive, although it is moderately chemically toxic. The small amount in an RTG completely pales in comparison to the plutonium in the environment from all the nuclear tests, and those make up literally 0.5% of the radiation we receive each year. (The rest comes mostly from natural sources but a significant amount also from medical xrays.)
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
There is a preliminary plot of Cassini's possible orbital tour here . According to it, Cassini will make around 69 orbits during its planned mission. Note that one of Cassini's primary targets, Titan, orbits at around 40 Saturn radii, well outside the rings.
Oh, and, look for all the pretty pictures from Cassini to be posted over at CICLOPS (Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations).
Bush Lies On the Record.
Actually, Cassini will pass through Saturn's rings twice during orbital insertion. Although it will be "driving" through one of the gaps between rings, it will still be going directly through the ring plane.
We have a room on the irc.freenode.net servers called #cassini which is available to all who are interested in the Cassini project. Here you will find a wide range of interests discussed, from the informal to the most scientific details of the mission. Some of the Cassini staff have shown interest in participating to further support the project's public interest so don't be surprized to meet them there.
We also support the ' Maestro ' program which is the Public-Outreach software created for the Mars Exploration Rover Project from JPL . As a result, we helped maintain the #maestro room (also on freenode.net) which is still in operation today.
With such high interest building as Cassini-Huygens approaches orbital insertion and the Phoebe flyby, we expect a bigger rush in the next weeks. Join in and share the experience!
If you are not sure how to do 'IRC' there are many good primers online to help and you can visit http://freenode.net for details about connecting as well as links to assist you to set things up to chat online.
See all "/.'ers" there... ;^)
Pandelirium
http://www.pandelirium.net irc.freenode.net
#cassini
#maestro
#pandelirium