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Cassini-Huygens Reaches Phoebe
Anonymous Explorer writes "The Cassini-Huygens
probe is set to fly by the largest outer Saturn moon of Phoebe today. Cassini will be roughly 2000 km from the surface of Phoebe at 1:56 Pacific time Friday, June 11. Thats
pretty darn close. The newest
images of Phoebe are already thousands of times better than the previous ones taken by the Voyager
2 mission in 1981. Phoebe is interesting in that it maintains a retrograde orbit around Saturn. This has lead to the hypothesis that it is an ancient asteroid that has been captured by the gravitational pull from Saturn. Phoebe may provide some important insights into the composition of early building blocks of our planets. Phoebe was discovered in 1898 by American astronomer William
Pickering. As always, discussion about this mission can be found at
#cassini on irc.freenode.net."
... on a very special "Friends".
Google search, "define: retrograde"
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
If Cassini confirms your theory that Phoebe is a probe, I think that will be a very valuable insight. It will mean there are aliens that were building probes long before us, and they could build probes that are hundreds of miles wide.
Hmmm, that deep crater looks like a good place to park the Millenium Falcon while we wait for that Star Destroyer to leave.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Many people have that same idea about NASA and its exploration, that it will not give any valuable insight or information regarding the universe. I would like to think out of all of the mysteries of earth, space is the biggest one. Hopefully one day there will be valuable insight and information that will support a need for NASA besides pictures and samples of surfaces that wont even make it back to earth for a more indepth examination. These probes may gather the specific information the scientists are looking for but maybe something new can be found from looking and studying it in person, and perhaps some new tests could be created that could give us the valuable insight we seek.
This is just amazing. We're really reaching further and further out in the solar system. And not just by blindly sending probes out there, but by consciously seeking to get close to other bodies in the solar system, and really finding out. I really hope I get to see the Europa landings in my lifetime.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
How can you possibly determine what is or isn't valuable information before it's even discovered??
Granted there are never any guarantees, but the Cassini probe is going to be over 1000 times closer than previous probes. You never know what it might discover.
Like Uranus? -- Sorry.. had to.
On the contrary, the phoebe probe will give us extremely valuable insight into the creation of our Solar System. In fact, it already has in that it is cratered (albeit, not seen as a major discovery to most people). Scientists have wondered for years how it managed to only reflect 6% of the light hitting it. In addition, since this may be a Kuiper object, it would be the only (relatively) stationary one within reasonable range from Earth to study.
Here are some links about phoebe and the Cassini-Huygens:
Phoebe
Cassini-Huygens
Obi-Wan: That's no moon. It's a space station.
don't you humans get the message? what part of "ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE" is hard to understand?
Then decides she is too much of a dizzy blonde and that Rachel might be more interesting.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
That moon looks like one of my recent attempts at Photoshop :S
:)
mmm gradient shading
That is actually Phoebe on both sides. The right one is a picture of Phoebe 13 hours after the left one. it takes Phoebe only 9 and a half hours to make a full spin on it's axis (It has 9 and a half hour days). Those are two different hemispheres.
Having scoured the web sites --- it's actually quite hard to find the information --- the probe is doing the close flyby at 2056 UTC (i.e. about two and a half hours from now). Assuming I've got the daylight saving compensation right, of course...
BTW, you don't work for the Alexis de Toqueville Institute, by any chance, do you?
Breakfast served all day!
Saturn has billions of "moons" if something that small (137 miles?!?) is considered one. The composition of the rings alone makes up a ton. So why is this one more interesting than others?
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
you get to use local time! :P
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Don't you mean The Cassini-Huygens mission? Phoebe is the little moon like thing that is cause for all this hubbub.
And your damnable metric time!
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Apparently, I can't spell.
And there's plenty of other important causes you could be contributing to besides filling your belly with Budweiser and buying batteries for your remote control. You could be solving the problems of world hunger right now, but instead you spend all day working in an office, you callous bastard. I'm disgusted at your inhumanity. Next you'll be telling me that there's more than one worthwhile endeavor on earth, or that the quest for knowledge is one of the fundamental characteristics that distinguishes mankind from the beasts of the forest, or some crap like that.
Breakfast served all day!
Anyone have info on when the pics will make the transit and be broadcast? The Cassini site at JPL seems to be acting weird ATM. Looks like NASA can send a probe to Saturn but can't build a website to resist the /. effect.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
Why can't we see Saturn behind Phoebe if the probe is going toward both?
When are we gonna privatize space so commericial entities can quickly outpace NASA?
While I would have to agree that it seems as though if you've seen one moon, you've seen them all, it still adds value for the Cassini probe (not Phoebe, but I understand what you are hinting at) to explore Phoebe.
And yes, it is very possible that something unexpected will be seen. That would indeed give valuable insite. Even if it is just an ordinary hunk of rock, it will still give insight into the composition of other Saturnian moons and what to expect in that region of the solar system. Even as just a simple data point. It is expected that even more will be found, and frankly I look forward to visually exploring this world in a way that nobody until today has been able to see it like.
When the Voyager probes went by Io, there was no hint that it could possibly be showing active volcanoes, or be hinting at the distinct possibilities of seeing liquid oceans on Europa (admittedly buired under ice, but still there). I don't expect such a revelation with Phoebe, but you don't know. Perhaps a black monolith with proportions 1 x 4 x 9?
the probe is doing the close flyby at 2056 UTC (i.e. about two and a half hours from now
Sorry to confuse the issue even more, but since the probe is 80 light minutes from the earth, does that mean that 2056 UTC is when it's actually happening, or is that when we finally find out that it happened 80 minutes in the past?
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
That's no Moon... It's a space station!?
I'm really excited about the new photos... I hope they release full res mosaics and don't delay... pre-processed surface texture and heightmap data would be nice, too.
:)
If you want to get an idea of just how high res pictures they're going to get, do the following:
1) Download the program "Celestia". Build and run it.
2) While it is building, pull up the last picture that Cassini took of Phoebe.
3) When Celestia comes up, full screen it.
4) Go into the configuration and tell it to include full details. Exit the configuration menu.
5) Press enter, and type in "Phoebe". Press enter.
6) Press 'g' to go to Phoebe (note: Phoebe is currently false-texture in Celestia, since we don't know much about it)
7) Middle click and hold down, and drag the mouse until you're at a distance of 658,000 kilometers.
8) Press ctrl-'+' to zoom, until the resolution of Phoebe that you're seing on the screen is about the same as that in the NASA picture (note: resolution, not size. The nasa picture is enlarged).
9) Without changing the zoom, hold middle click againa nd drag the mouse until the distance is 2,000 kilometers.
10) Hold down shift, and use the arrow keys to look around. That's the sort of resolution images that they should be able to get.
Impressive, isn't it? I can't wait!
Carbon, made, only wants to be unmade.
The newest images of Phoebe are already thousands of times better than the previous ones taken by the Voyager 2 mission in 1981.
No, but it is hoped they will be. At best, the newest released images are 10x better than Voyager. Expect the high res images later today. You are getting ahead of yourself.
an ill wind that blows no good
The ocean is the biggest one.
;)
Space is the biggest mystery of the galaxy/universe
I'm just thinking, if Phoebe is the probe, I am very concerned about learning what aperture it was designed for.
Never eat anything bigger than your head.
Your entire list of "issues" is made up of items that are entirely social in nature. Humankind could solve every single one of these if we could just put aside our petty differences and decide to do it. "Physician, heal thyself"
Space research is truly the last frontier. The knowledge derived from it lifts all humanity even if only from the perspective of giving us a glimpse into what all of us alive today will never see. Once a spacecraft leaves our planet it become research in it's purest form.
Fixing the roads may be important to you today but 1000 years from now will mankind get use from the fact that the local interstate had no potholes in 2004 or that a wealth of scientific information was gathered from Cassini?
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
Phoebe is actually believed to be a captured Kuiper Belt object (KBO). This means its composition might be very icy/organic, making it more like a non-active comet than an asteroid.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Was it originally observed by the Greeks?
The slashdot write up ALREADY says:
"Phoebe is interesting in that it maintains a retrograde orbit around Saturn."
Someone asks "why is Phoebe is interesting", gets modded up.
Someone answers "it has a retrograde orbits", gets modded up.
Jesus.
And yes, it is very possible that something unexpected will be seen. That would indeed give valuable insite.
Up to a point even seeing what you expect is valuable information.
It was the regularity of the behavior of falling bodies that provided the insight that makes this very mission possible.
KFG
Weren't you in class the day they told you not to start every sentence with the same word? :-)
At least you didn't start each sentence with "I"...
Heh heh... Just giving you a hard time.UTC comes up when setting time zones of most (if not all) linux distributions. So most have heard of it
Of course, if you're like me, you ignored it and had your computer watch running 9 hours ahead of your system clock...
But yeah, PST = Pacific Standard Time. So try looking for a city on the pacific (YellowKnive, Vancouer, Seattle, Portland, LA, San Fran, and Tijunana are all common choices i think). Also, the one refers to 01 as there is no pm or am used you can assume its 24 hour time
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
You'd think a geophysicist would be familiar with google.
...this probe was never meant for anal insertion
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
Its lovely how there are cries of privatizing space and how we'd get to the stars faster if we only let regular joe mega corporations build spaceships. There plans go something like the familar pattern we've seen all over the place in /.
1. Privatize Space Exploration
2. ????
3. Profit!!
Right now there is little to no incentive for a company like Lockhead-Martin to build system to land people on the moon and build a moonbase. Science is a terrible profit motive unless you can find practicle applications. And since we know the moon isn't made of cheese (which you can sell) or littered with diamons the size of footballs no company has this burning desire to go into space. Its too costly to make money at it.
So we are stuck with government ventures. I'm glad the US, Russia, and China push these things but I have no illusions about how this works. They are doing it because their is a small bet of prestigue and a good way to spend military for R&D without making it so obvious.
So until you find out that Pheobe is made of 99% gold or Mars has rubies the size of boulders or something else interesting there is little point ot privatizing space over having world governments fund it. Simply put, governments don't care about profits.
I welcome our new Saturnian overlords.
In Soviet Russia, Phoebe observes you.
AHA! That goatse.cx guy is really part of an alien invasion. I feel so much better now.
check the facts yourself!
There is no DSN tracking pass today, so the high res images won't even be in JPL's hot little hands until tomorrow afternoon.
--Rob
bletch - that solarviews.com link brought up one of the most annoying pages I've ever seen with the giant flashing red arrows. Who can read the info with all that crap going on, jeebus.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Has anyone calculated the orbit of Uranus in regards to slowing? I mean: if you take a bicycle wheel spinning, it will easily rotate about a lateral axis as in rolling about axis as in the earth; but if you try twisting the wheel, as in the orbit in Uranus, the wheel slows much more rapidly. It seems that the planet would exert a slowing orbit or slowing rotation. Any physicists tackle this calculation?
2056 UTC is when it's actually happening. We'll have to wait another 80 minutes till Cassini's radio signals sent during the flyby reach earth. Nothing here to see until at least 2220 UTC.
Perhaps a black monolith with proportions 1 x 4 x 9?
Nope. They won't find that until Cassini images Iapetus.
Now to see who's read the book.
How cheap is it going to beat to fly into space? *shrug* Its like saying make a $10M contest to build a boat for $100 that can cruise can cross the Pacific. It can be done but I don't see such a contest harelding a new age of travel or cargo carrying. It takes more than coming up with a cheap boat that wins a science fair.
Everyone forgets step #2. People are going after the X-Prize because the prize itself is profit. The moment that disappears what then? How many people will pay for a 3 seat vehilce that will do nothing much but put them in orbit? What will they do up there? They certainly aren't going to make it to the moon let alone Saturn to check out what is there in this thing. If it costs $10,000 per person per ride how many are going to line up for this?!?!
I don't doubt that someday technology will catch up and make space travel cheap, comfy, and affordable. It isn't today and unless someone gets lucky doing materials research it isn't going to be any time in the near future. Contests like the X-Prize are interesting but it isn't going to change L-M, Boeing, etc. buisness plans.
That was funny... but I fear not all Slashdotters get the subtle ironic funmaking of rabid 'libertarians'.
20:56 UTC is Earth Recieve Time.. It actually happened at 19:34 UTC Spaceraft event time... we really at 19:35 ephemeris time.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
PST is centred on Redmond, Washington. That is why all computers are set by default to the One Time Zone. Have you not seen a fresh computer before :-)
One of the greatest things about the Mars rovers page, is that you don't have to wait until NASA releases "press release" images in order to see the latest. You can access them through the mars rovers RAW images site probably a few hours after NASA got them.
I havn't seen any links to such a database for Casinni, but I really hope they set one up soon!
"Many other probes have promised the same thing but we have not yet seem the information."
Actually, I believe WMAP has given extremely valuable information about the "building" of the Universe. In fact, coupled with other observations (such as those of supernovae), it's helped us narrow down to a very good degree of precision the amount of dark energy and non-baryonic dark matter in the Universe--information that is instrumental in tuning Earth-based experiments that search for neutralinos and/or their products.
I doubt a Phoebe fly-by will tell us nearly as much about the evolution of the Universe, but it very well might tell us a lot about the evolution of the solar system. But I guess it still comes down to the question of what exactly is "valuable." If you don't feel like collecting information on the origins of humanity is valuable, then I think SCO might have an opening for you.
UUDDLRLRBA - Wouldn't want to thwart anyone trying to beat Life Force or Contra would we?
This is my post. See sig above ^
and it was quite successful here.
UTC is damn awful time system because of leap seconds which cannot be predicted. All calculations must use ET....
For the purpose at hand (communicating to humans who live around the world about time to within a minute or two) UTC is just the thing.
Leap seconds are necessary for many purposes because the earth spins at an unpredictable rate, and people (and navigators) like to keep in sync with sunrise, star transits, etc.
You might want to check your own reference about "ET":
It is common to see outdated references to ET when TT is intended, even in currently operating flight projects.
When leap seconds are inconvenient, TT/ET is indeed a reasonable choice. It is an old time scale, but very useful because it remains pretty consistent in usage over longer time periods. But what you probably want is an official time standard (one that is widely available via radio signals, NTP, etc) without leap seconds. TAI is the right starting point there. It is pretty much a constant offset from TT, but more official outside astronomical circles, and thus more likely to be made available conveniently like UTC is.
Ignore the loonies who are trying to do away with leap seconds in UTC - that is just silly. Use TAI if you don't like leap seconds.
--Neal
Go IETF!
According to a JPL timeline, it's closest approach to Phoebe will be at 2004-06-11t20:56z, and the playback of data starts at 2004-06-12t13:28z.
Bill Pickering wasn't an American you putz! He was a New Zealander!
What's next, the Aussies claiming Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson as their own? Oh, wait... Never mind. You can have both of them. Leave Ed Hillary out of this though.
> Now to see who's read the book.
I did! Many times. Yay for an anonymous coward.
By 'Ground Time' they mean Earth Receive Time, or when the even happens at Saturn adjusted by a one-way light time from Saturn, or about an hour and a half.... Saturn is durn far away.
The flyby happened around 19:34 UTC Saturn-Time.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
We'll never escape natural distasters, and we certainly can't run from ourselves, but we can get away from the religion.
Not likely. Every religion on earth (that I can think of, anyway) dictates that deities and/or heavenly realms exist in the upward direction.
Quite to the contrary, a group of astronomers published exactly that prediction three days before our first close-up glimpse of Io. The gravity of Jupiter and several of its moons are all tugging and pulling on Io like a rubber ball.
The astronomers calculated the tidal forces acting on the moon, and concluded the only way Io could release the energy of those forces is through extreme volcanic activity.
This sounds(?) about right, from what little I know of Dutch pronounciation.
This being the 21st Century already and all, one would think that we'd be to the point where somebody who knows how to pronounce Cassini-Heygens would be able to easily upload a sound clip somehow into a posting so that everybody else could just listen to it. Alas, not quite yet, it seems, but perhaps some of us will live to see it.
"Anybody can change the world, but most people probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson
Talk about an armchair quarterback here.
Yeah, there was some suspicion that there may be some volcanic activity on IO, and it is also suspected for the rest of the Galleleian moons as well, but on Io they took photographs of volcanoes during the middle of an eruption. That was totally unexpected and wasn't even caught until about two days or so after the event was captured by Voyager during the 2nd round of scientific analysis of the data.
Now that we know that you can have celestial bodies that are much more geologically active than the earth (I can't think of a good term to substitute for geology here, but exogeology just doesn't sound right either) this was something to look for. It was also found on Triton, but that was after the experiences of looking for volcanoes around Io.
Comet Wild 2 picture looks much alike Phoebe
Is it just me or is there some scientific significance (Phoebe is a captured comet etc.)