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."

Comments

All this and more...

[Anonymous Coward]

... on a very special "Friends".

Re:All this and more...

[bludstone]

You know, I was going to post "the first person to make a reference to 'friends' gets smacked with a wet noodle."

But I was too late.

-sigh-

I hate that show, and am convinced that it only suceeded because it ran after the simpsons.

Re:No Different

[Anonymous Coward]

Phoebe's mission is no different than many other probes

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.

Parking

[tedgyz]

Hmmm, that deep crater looks like a good place to park the Millenium Falcon while we wait for that Star Destroyer to leave.

Re:Parking

[Noren]

"It's heading for that small moon."

"That's no moon... it's a captured carbonaceous asteroid."

Re:Parking

[Paulrothrock]

It's a TRAP!

Come on, it's funny on Fark.

Re:No Different

[Anonymous Coward]

"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."

Like Uranus? -- Sorry.. had to.

Re:For those of us who aren't astrophysicists.

[tomasito]

I am not an astrophysicist. I did a GIS for "Phoebe" and was even more confused... Is the Cassini-Huygens craft going to "probe" Lisa Kudrow?

you set yourself up

[proj_2501]

don't you humans get the message? what part of "ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE" is hard to understand?

Re:you set yourself up

[lpontiac]

It's about as hard to understand as "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW" :)

Re:you set yourself up

[Tackhead]

> don't you humans get the message? what part of "ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE" is hard to understand?

Something always gets lost in translation. That's what's hard to understand. For instance, here's the original:

YOU SET YOURSELF UP.
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE BELONG TO YOU EXCEPT EUROPA.
YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO LAND THERE MAKE YOUR TIME.

Re:you set yourself up

[avgjoe62]

you mean the national guard, right?

No, he said "well regulated" :-)

Gradient Shading..

[sirdude]

That moon looks like one of my recent attempts at Photoshop :S

mmm gradient shading :)

Re:For those of us who aren't astrophysicists.

[hopemafia]

As a Geologist I'm even more confused by your statement 'I did a GIS for "Phoebe"'.
I use GIS quite a lot and didn't know that geographical information systems had anything to do with space exploration or Lisa Kudrow. To think all this time all I've been doing with my GIS is mapping and spatial analysis.
I'll have to fire up ArcView and try out these new features you describe...

When you send a probe to a ringed gas giant

[gatkinso]

you get to use local time! :P

Damn you Europeans!

[Hayzeus]

And your damnable metric time!

Re:Use Celestia to preview the image quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Then press L R L R U D U D and you will be granted unlimited ammunition and the ability to use all warp-tunnels within the galaxy.