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."
a very psychedelic and beautiful area of our solar system into clearer focus
::puff:: You don't need no stinkin' satellite.. ::puff:: in order to see psychedelic spaaace, maaaan! ::puff::
Heeeey man..
to keep her head down 'round about the 11th.
She gets a little freaked when things flyby without warning (although I've rather been looking forward to it myself).
I'm still trying to figure out though, why I, as the more massive of the pair, appear without question to be the captured object.
KFG
I predict they'll get some footage like this.
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
This mission promises to be one that brings a very psychedelic
Guess the mission engineers took the brown acid. Bummer.
bash: rtfm: command not found
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 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.
IMHO quality images do more to create and maintain public enthusiasm for space exploration than all the statistics in the world about the benefits of the space program; far too many geeks and/or scientists underestimate and underutilize the best of all marketing tools we have for getting funding and support for the space program. I hope they don't forget about the value of a pretty picture.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
Al Sharpton (2004 democratic presedential hopeful) led a protest in harlem at NASA's Goddard center.
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.
Does this mean that those of us who are not lazy have to wait a few more weeks before we can learn about Phoebe's observations?
Phoebe best image so far, from Voyager2 in 1981
"My God! It's full of pixels!"
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.
I know you're just going for a lame joke, but for the record, Uranus does have rings.
She was the hottest of the Friends.
This, as we all know, is the spaceship equivalent of a middle aged man gettin' some for the first time in a long while.
Current death toll from Amnesty International's actions in Nepal: 9000
You want to give us the slightest shred of evidence for that?
I hate unsubstative, emotional, unable to be backed up sigs. Especially stupid ones.
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
Planet Druidia's in sight, sir!
i am a soviet space shuttle
Seriously, though... You have to admit the opposition managed to put out some scary stuff... I saw it in the hallway at college and wasn't pleased. Got over it though.
I had a sucky sig.
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.
I'm sorry, but goatse.cx has made it impossible to utter phrases like that without a collective cringing. The only way you could have made that more mentally disturbing is if this were a mission to Uranus.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
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.
You seem to assume that slashdot trolls are somehow affected by facts. So let me be the first to say... You must be new here!
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.
Funny, I never post AC. It says something about a person's character when they will only be controversial when they are not held accountable.
Anyway, I didn't say "environmentalists" are stupid. Most mean well, and some are even well informed and productive. Unfortunately, many mistake passion for evidence, and can't be bothered to investigate opposing viewpoints.
RTGs are hardened and designed to withstand explosion and extreme temperatures. They do not explode, and I believe that they do not even become active until after launch. Radiation has been "The R Word" since the 50's, but we actually use it all the time and know how to handle it. Only in cases of extreme incompetence and lack of precautions (see Chernobyl - 1986) do we need to be concerned.
Returning to the planet, a nuclear plant is far less likely to cause ANY harm than most power technologies or chemical processes (See Bophal, India). We KNOW that radiation can be dangerous, hence the extreme precations we take.
Incidently, NOTHING is 100% safe... along with fearing (and guarding against) the risk, you should consider the rewards.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
"Smelly probe, sme-elly probe..."
(Unless it's the other Phoebe. Meh, she does nothing for me. Wake me up when the probe approaches Piper.)
You must think in Russian.
Health of all future generations? The article cited said the plutonium dioxide fuel had a half-life of only 89 years, and they were talking about lung cancer, not something inheritable.
THE NERD IS THE COMPUTER.
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 protests were about a risk, that is, an accident that could have occurred with a certain probability. Everybody pretty much agreed that the risk of an accident was at least fairly low. What people disagreed on was the cost should such an accident acctually occur. The fact that a fairly low-risk event didn't occur does not tell you anything about whether it was prudent to engage in the activity in question.
I'm sorry that such elementary scientific and economic concepts as "risk" and "cost" elude you. Without an understanding of those concepts, you are simply in no position to even participate in such debates.
The Soviet leadership could deploy whatever technologies they liked because the people had no say in the matter. But we live in a democracy and a nation of laws, not a totalitarian state. Before you can do something, either as part of a government project or as a private company, you better convince people that you are not going to cause any harm. How strongly you believe that RTGs are safe is irrelevant, what matters is whether you can convince almost everybody else of that belief.
Because, while RTGs may be reasonably safe (and I think they are), some lunatic may decide to engineer a "curative HIV virus" and just get it wrong, or release some wonderful new chemical into the environment.
For scientists and engineers to force technologies on people that they aren't comfortable with is arrogant and ultimately harms the standing of science and technology in our culture. Yes, that means people like you.
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?
"first main-engine burrn in five years"
...
[only a] 78 mph change in speed
One thing that comes out again here, but only by implication, from these reports, is the amazing accuracy and precision (still amazing to me anyhow) of the ephemerides (~ solar system maps) used to plan these missions. They knew where Mars would be for MER to within, what, was it about a meter or two? Maybe not that close for Saturn but still good enough not to need main-engine course corrections in five years
Kudos to the chief JPL mapmaker Dr Myles Standish and his crew!
-wb-
Returning to the planet, a nuclear plant is far less likely to cause ANY harm than most power technologies or chemical processes (See Bophal, India). We KNOW that radiation can be dangerous, hence the extreme precations we take.
While many people may be afraid of the potential harm from nuclear power plant accidents, the real problem with them is that nobody has figured out what to do with the waste.
Bhopal may have been a terrible chemical accident, but the chemicals that were released can be destroyed fairly easily if anybody cared to. But with nuclear waste, once you have generated it, you are pretty much stuck with it for millennia.
Incidently, NOTHING is 100% safe... along with fearing (and guarding against) the risk, you should consider the rewards.
Well, and your reward metrics may be very different from other people's. Most people on this planet probably couldn't care less about the scientific data Cassini yields. It isn't even worth their time listening to you (or me) why Cassini is safe. Likewise, given a realistic choice, many people might well prefer using less energy to using nuclear power.
wow, we should build a base on Phoebe(call it UAL), do some time-altering research, and prepare for imp onslaught...
By then, we better have BFG
I AM an environmentalist, and I KNOW that there was more danger with the rocket (bomb) that was sitting under Cassini hurting people than the RTG becoming a problem. IF the RTG did somehow become a problem, the "probability * consequences" was still so low that it's more dangerous for you (and the rest of the world) to drive your car to work. The issue is that there are some rather uninformed emotional reactions to the word "radiation".
Do you drive a car? Do you use a computer? Do you smoke? All of these have very real and very bad risks to yourself and others. Nothing you do is 100% safe. You're still doing it.
The problem is not that you oppose nuclear power, it's that you seem to be uninformed about nuclear power (and the rest of technology). The "risk" associated with your using electrical energy to power your computer is more than the risk NASA generates by using an RTG to power a spacecraft. The environmental consequences of burning coal, damming rivers, or however else you produce your electricity are much worse than the use (or even (VERY unlikely) destruction within Earth's atmosphere) of an RTG.
Yes it is a risky endeavour, but we must try, and really, it's not a moment too soon! Perhaps in the future we can go there ourselves, with balloons, rovers, even amfibian vehicles. In a somewhat distant future...
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."
The /. mods are the same as the /. users, and I'd say they are anything but right-wing...
I did not know that, thanks. I was under the impression that something akin to control rods (in function, not form) kept the radiation very minimal until someone threw the switch. Good to know.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Are you trying to determine the net efficiency of a US scientist versus a European scientist?
Wake me up when we plant a flag on Jupiter.
Why the hell is this troll? Beagle was a freaking disaster and a terribly ran project. Nothing wrong with that at all...
IntechHosting - Free domain, 2GB, PHP, £4.95/$8.95
With 31 moons/natural satellites thus far discovered orbiting Saturn, there should be a lot to keep us occupied. Anyone else excited...
:).
Excited? Pictures of Phoebe? 31 moons?
When do they get pictures of Rachel? That would be some moon! I like that one better than Phoebe, at least to look at, but Phoebe is more entertaining to listen to. You can skip Ross, Joey and Chandler but take a few of Monica mooning while you're at it. That will get me excited
They're also really damn expensive because you have to make the fuel in a nuclear reactor. Probably not suitable for home use. Also, there hasn't been much success making them really really tiny like you'd want for portable equipment.
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
... about the journey to a ringed Apparantly not, we're having the same old discussion about that hazards it posed for having a nuclear power source, and dumb jokes about a character on a defunt sitcom. Perhaps it would save some bandwith on /. if mods just decided to forgo future Cassini stories. Those who want to see the pictures know where to go.
For those of you interested in Saturn's larger roll in the formation of our solar system, check out this site. Lots to read, but pretty interesting:
http://www.jnocook.net/saturn/
The ring plane extends out to infinity, and so even the Earth passes through it occasionally. The ring plane is considerably tilted with respect to the ecliptic, so it would have been impossible for the Voyagers to not pass through the ring plane. Both went well outside the rings, not, as you imply, through the rings (In Saturn radii: closest approaches V1=3.09 & V2=2.67, outer ring lies at ~2.3) Someone has already pointed out your misinformation about the Cassini orbit. Your links are interesting, but none support your assertions.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
its first main-engine burn in five years>/I>
Cassini comm hardware: We get signal
Cassini CPU: Main Engine Turn On
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
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
If all a probe is going to do is image from outside .. what's the use of it? Compare Hubble's photos of Titan to Voyagers.
.. it's useless.
The small telescope on Voyager can be matched by Earth or Earth orbit based telescope. If the ESO's massive 100m telescope can be built, we'll get shots better than what voyager or other space probes took.
My point is this. If the probe doesn't land on the surface
Cassini is carrying Huygens, that's what I consider the "use" of Cassini.
Hmmm how about an artist-impression of that... :-)
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
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
to get really high on june 11th?
"very psychedelic and beautiful area of our solar system into clearer focus."
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
Hellifiknow, I guess you can only make fun of American and how shittly it's ran, and not Europe. Just proving Slashdot is a Leftist site.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
My point was, clearly stated, that people generally agreed that the probability of an event was low, even people who opposed the Cassini launch. Therefore, absence of an event does not prove, as the post implied, that the launch was low risk because the event itself was low probability.
Beyond that, you are just reiterating the usual arguments that the risk was low. I happen to agree with that. But arguing, as the original poster implied, that absence of deaths resulting from the Cassini launch suggests that Cassini was safe is a bogus argument, and presenting bogus arguments in support of some policy is a bad idea because, while people may not understand the safety of RTGs, they generally have a pretty good everyday understanding of probability, risk, and cost.
[NASA] are not infalliable, but they have numbers to back up their claims. And I would take a 100 scientist recommendation over an elitest snob.
NASA is publicly financed. If they acquire a reputation for going over people's heads with missions that are perceived to be dangerous, they'll lose political support and funding. It doesn't matter whether they are objectively right, what matters is whether they can convince the taxpayer that what they are doing is valuable and safe.
The only way to achieve that is to increase the general level of interest and understanding of science and technology in the US and around the world. Sending up space probes against significant objections and then presenting bogus arguments in hindsight to "show" that it was safe only does harm.
And, frankly, given how much trouble you seem to have participating in a coherent dissection of an argument, it seems to me your science education could stand some improvement as well. You see, just because one agrees with a conclusion does not mean that every argument leading to that conclusion has to be right.
I'll second that Wow, and add a holy shit.
:)
;-)
Kinda makes the CGI from the movie 2010 (which was amazing back then) look pathetic, doesn't it?
I have a new wallpaper...now if I could persuade someone to print a wall-sized poster of that, well
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
wtf! some mods sure are fucktards who have no idea what they're doing.
The submission isn't really wrong, 5-6 months could still be considered a 'few' months but the Huygens probe won't be released until December, 2004, and won't reach Titan until January, 2005.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???