Slashdot Mirror
Saturn Hailstorm
crmartin writes "NASA has released a web story about the sounds recorded aboard the Cassini spacecraft as it pased through the Rings. The story includes a Quicktime file of the hailstorm-like sounds of Ring particles impacting."
Well... you might want to RTFA...
Each time a dust particle hit Cassini, the impact produced a puff of plasma--a tiny cloud of ionized gas. Cassini's Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument was able to count these clouds; there were as many as 680 puffs per second. "We converted these into audible sounds that resemble hail hitting a tin roof," says Gurnett, the intrument's principal investigator.
Certainly not, but you can hear the sound of the particles hitting the craft as it resonates through the metal (or whatever) that makes up the craft.
If you were trying to listen to it with an open-air microphone, though, well that obviously wouldn't make any sense.
Yes, but when those particles hit the orbiter, they impact causes sound waves inside the orbiter.
Kind of like ligthly tapping on your desk with a pencil...you can't hear it from across the room, but you can if you put your ear to the desk.
wbs.
Huh?
Oh dear. Looks like we'll have to recall Cassini back to Earth, remove the 'Cassini' nameplate, attatch a nameplate that has been mutually agreed by Microsoft and NASA, and then go on another 7 year voyage back. However, with luck, we could use 'delaying tactics' to prevent this recall from happening until after Huygens has been released. If Microsoft has any problems with Huygens, they are welcome to send their lawyers in a space-ship towards that frozen hydrocarbon soup of a moon.