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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."
while we are talking about Cassini, let us remember the protesters who were so opposed to it.
Remember cassini is nasa's deadly space probe. It is nice to see that these groups have other stuff to protest these days. Hope that stuff is not as deadly as cassini...
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I more than half expected the channel to be Slashdotted, as happens to all websites when their address is mentioned here. But strangely, there are only about ten people over there right now.
On another note, I am very excited about the upcoming part of this mission. I was finishing high school when they launched this thing, and when they talked about it, it seemed like it would be forever before that thing reached Saturn. Needless to say, it has been a lot less than forever.
I wish the fine engineers at Nasa the best of luck in accomplishing this portion of the mission.
After the Phoebe flyby, it's on to the ringed planet
All the gas giants have rings, not just Saturn. They're not as easy to see, but they have been detected.
Learn something new.
about so-called "obligatory" jokes. If you repeat them over and over, they are no longer funny, and thus aren't jokes. Just mindless filler, waste of mod points, etc..
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Judging from previous releases from the imaging team(CICLOPS, they seem to be a very, very competent bunch. During the Jupiter flyby 4 years ago, they used the spare seconds between scheduled observations to take extra images of Jupiter in true color which they then stitched together later to form the highest detailed full planet image of Jupiter ever taken. With Cassini actually passing through a gap in the inner rings during its orbit insertion it's hard to imaging the spectacular images that await us.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Some European space scientist said that space exploration is necessary for a society for the same reason an art gallery is.
And yes I do prefer women with personality before those without, but then again it all depends on what kind of relationship we'll have, doesn't it? Also, I'm kind of tired of people claiming that looks are not important. They are, for everyone.
Does anyone else think its amazing that the thing actually works after five years of no activity? Seriously, I wouldn't trust my router, cable modem, or toaster (all devices of comparable embedded computing power) to run nonstop for five years. I think it speaks well for the Nasa engineers, and the things they actually do right. Its a shame only their mistakes make the news.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Can't believe how much I'm looking forward to this. It's going to be exciting to learn more about the rings (especially the F-rings perhaps), Saturn itself and then the landing on Titan. It's a good thing there are so many mysteries out there, or the world would be a bit boring.
Given that the rings are made up of lumps of rock and ice, how do you avoid them? Will Cassini orbit inside the rings? Outside? Or does it have a bulldozer plough on the front to just barge it's way through?
This burn was only for 56 seconds, (insert joke here), and changed Cassini's velocity by about 78 mph.
June 30 is the real show when Cassini performs its orbit insertion burn for over 90 minutes, resulting in a delta-v change of in the area of 1,400 mph.
What's remarkable is that because of the distance between Earth and Saturn, there is an hour and 20 minute lag, so Cassini is pretty much on its own for this (and most other) maneuvers.
Bush Lies On the Record.
I call troll.
It seems that you don't understand the concepts of risk and probability.
You never have a "certain probability". All you have is probability. Probability is a best guess in cases such as this since there are numerous factors to take into consideration.
72 lbs. of plutonium re-entering the atmosphere BY ITSELF without shielding would cause insignificant damage at best. It would be vaporized and scattered in the upper atmosphere, where cosmic radiation would rapidly turn most particles into unstable elements that breakdown even faster.
In fact, the chances of said particles reaching the surface of the earth is minimal. And even if it did, we are talking fractions of microcuries at best.
BUT IT WILL DAMAGE THE ENVIRONMENT! 36 kg of plutonium vs. 6.14X10^24 kg of Earth? With the way people make radiation sound, you'd think it was magical death wraith just waiting to be set loose on the poor undefended Earth.
And while we're talking about probabilities, I think you should be more concerned with your fellow drivers than an errant space probe. You're far more likely to die in a car crash than any sort of radioactive accident, least of all from a space probe.
To put it in perspective, you have a risk when you take a shower in the morning. There's a risk that you could slip, crak your head and die. The risk is small, but it's there. Does this mean you shouldn't take showers? Do you do a risk/cost analysis everytime you step in the shower? Do you have life insurance, a will, savings, etc. for anyone left behind? Do you estimate how much a funeral will cost? What taxes will be due? How much lawyers will cost? What about your job? The cost it would take to replace you? The list goes on. And this is all just based on you taking a shower.
Do you trully know your risk/cost? I doubt it. It's not possible to know all the repercussions of your demise because no one can predict the future. If you were smart though, you would be prepared as you could be for such a thing and you'd go on living your life and taking showers.
You're just one person. NASA has hundreds who run computer simulations, analysis, environmental impacts, emergency scenarios, etc. . The probe was launched in 1997, but they were probably testing the hell out of it for at least a decade. And NASA has been doing this since the 60's.
They are not infalliable, but they have numbers to back up their claims. And I would take a 100 scientist recommendation over an elitest snob.
~X~
~X~
Things like this are among the things that move our entire world forward. Maybe not as big as landing on the moon within ten or anything...but, we are about to plunge a highly sensitive instrument into the atmosphere of a moon that is a solid distance away. It amazes me sometimes what we as a race are able to create and act upon. Our thoughts coming to fruition. This is the type of advance that could show us life. As I have said before...that time when we do discover and know of the existence of a growing reacting and whatevering life form will be a very bright day.
Mad, adj : Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. Ambrose Bierce - The Deveil's Dictionsary
Hmmm how about an artist-impression of that... :-)
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
It had rings last time I looked at it through a telescope.
Guess I may have been hallucinating or perhaps my memory is not what it was.
How do we know anything?
Paul
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate