New Ring Around Saturn

The Fun Guy writes "From the New York Times: 'In its first month orbiting Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft has detected a new radiation belt in an unexpected place, its invisible swarm of trapped high-energy particles circling the planet inside the inner edge of Saturn's signature disk of luminous rings.' Cassini has also seen 'a striking glow emanating day and night from the planet's largest moon, Titan.' A moon that shines with unborrowed light!"

Comments

Not a ring

[MarsDefenseMinister]

The rings are icy chunks of matter. Radiation is not. Technically, it's not a ring.

Re:Not a ring

[MarsDefenseMinister]

It matters because a lot of people are not knowlegable about astronomy, but have a lot of curiosity. They rely on little articles they read here and there for their information, including headlines they read on Slashdot. Misinformation doesn't do anyone any good.

It also matters because astronomy is to a large extent funded by public money. The people paying the bills for mega telescopes and space missions deserve to know the truth about the discoveries that they pay for.

Re:Not a ring

[DustMagnet]

It is entirely conceivable that ring can be used as a synonym for belt, particularly in this instance. Sure, radiation belts are typically called "belts" but there's no reason why they can't be called "rings".

There's a very good reason one is call rings and one is called belts. Look at the picture. Sure it's possible to have a radiation ring and a rock/ice belt, but that doesn't change the fact that a radiation belt was found.

Re:Not a ring

[MarsDefenseMinister]

It confuses newbies, that's why. It also confuses non-newbies, because the rings of Saturn always in the past have referred to the icy chunks. Always in the past, radiation toroids have been called belts.

I may as well be a pendant, you say, but I am in the habit of having people understand what I write because conventions of meaning and usage are followed. Otherwise the situation is thy nacturations are to me! As plurdled abbleblotchits
on a lurgid bee.

See?

It could be worse...

[pyrrhonist]

There could be a new ring around Uranus.

Re:It could be worse...

[flewp]

Didn't you hear? They changed the name of it to avoid all those bad puns. It's now called urectum.

/butchered joke, but I don't remember exactly how it went.

coincedence?

[Fo0eY]

so, are we just supposed to believe it's a coincedence that not only does saturn have the deathstar for a moon, now it has another moon that glows in the dark?

here's hoping my tinfoil hat blocks whatever evil alien radiation Titan's broadcasting

We know nothing

[numLocked]

I think this is one of the most exciting missions NASA has done in a quite some time. Articles like this really remind us that we have no idea what's going on and that there's a whole lot out there we haven't seen. Exploration is something else. I think what NASA really needs is some better marketing so people who aren't paying attention to these types of missions are drawn in. People love exploration - they just don't realize it's going on.

About the Glowing Moon

[Cabriel]

Space.com has a free article which deals in part with Titan's glowing nature. The last four paragraphs, specifically: Click Here

Just try to imagine living on Titan

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Rarely seeing space because of the thick clouds. The sky lit up for extended periods with lightning. Every so often the clouds clear and what do you see: a f**king gigantic banded sphere dominating the beyond with beautiful stripy rings sweeping from one side of the sky to the other. Then the clouds close again as more hydrocarbons rain down onto the slowly undulating ocean waves. A slimy tentacle emerges from the sea onto the beach...

Latest News.

[noselasd]

people interrested in space news should subscribe
to sci.space.news, Latest report from Cassini;

Subject: Cassini Update - August 6, 2004
From: baalke@earthlink.net (Ron)
Newsgroups: sci.space.news
Followup-To: sci.space.policy
Date: 6 Aug 2004 10:59:56 -0700

Cassini Significant Events
for 07/30/04 - 08/04/04

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Wednesday, August 4. The Cassini spacecraft is in an
excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the
present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the
"Present Position" web page located at
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present- posi tion.cfm .

The S02 background sequence concluded with the execution of a Reaction Wheel
Assembly bias activity. S03 began execution on Friday July 30. Initial
activities included the loading of Instrument Expanded Block files, and
uplink of Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) flight software (FSW) version 9.2.4.
The CDA FSW checkout is scheduled for mid August.

Science activities this week mostly centered on Saturn observations. The
Magnetospheric and Plasma Science (MAPS) instruments began a campaign to
study the influence of the solar wind on Saturn's aurora, while Optical
Remote Sensing (ORS) instruments observed Saturn's south pole and aurora. In
addition, the Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument observed
Saturn's kilometric radio emissions. RPWS team members also gave a
presentation to the flight team recapping science results that had been
presented at last month's Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) meeting in
Paris, France. Besides Saturn observations, the Imaging Science Subsystem
(ISS) observed the trailing side of Iapetus, which will only be seen on a
few occasions during tour.

In the last week, 747 ISS images arrived and were distributed. So far since
Approach Science began, 15896 ISS images and 4614 Visual and Infrared
Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) cubes have been returned.

In preparation for the Huygens Probe mission early next year, the Spacecraft
Operations Office (SCO) Integrated Test Lab has completed ten probe relay
fault case tests. Eight tests passed completely. One of the failed cases
was an incorrect fault injection and will be repeated at a later date. The
second failed case is currently being reviewed.

A project briefing was held as part of the Science Operations Plan update
process for S05. This process will complete on Friday, August 6 and a
handoff package presented to the leads for the Science and Sequence Update
Process.

Assessment meetings were held to review all of the requested changes to the
S08 and S09 sequences as part of the Aftermarket process. It appears that
all requested changes will fit within available resources. The Target
Working Teams and Orbiter Science Teams will be reviewing the requests over
the next two weeks and will provide their recommendations at the decision
meeting for S08 scheduled for August 13 and for S09 on August 17.

Development of S04 continued this week. A Preliminary Sequence Integration
and Validation (PSIV) Science Allocation Panel (SAP) Meeting, Simulation
Coordination meeting, and Simulation Procedure Review meeting were held.
The simulation meetings were to coordinate testing of a first time use of
Inertial Vector Definition in a Radio Science boresight calibration
activity.

The Navigation team reported that the post solar conjunction separation
angle is currently about 20 degrees. Tracking data quality has improved
significantly.

The Multi Mission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL) is performing
certification testing of the Solaris 9 upgrades authorized by the Project as
a part of the MIPL D32 delivery.

A delivery coordination meeting was held for the Attitud

Dammit!

[new death barbie]

The last one off Titan was supposed to turn off the light!