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Two New Saturnian Moons
Mixel writes "NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting saturn since the 30th of June has uncovered two previously unknown bodies. 'The moons are approximately 3 kilometers (2 miles) and 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) across -- smaller than the city of Boulder, Colorado.' The Huygens probe will be deployed to the large (bigger than Mercury!) yet mysterious moon, Titan, in December."
I'm aware that something that size would almost certainly be totally rocky with next to no atmosphere, but the article doesn't say whether these are gaseous or not. Surely we need to know their composition before sending a probe?
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Thats no moon...
sorry, sorry... I'll get my quote, I mean coat.
For something so small, "moon" seems to be a quite grandiose term.
Cool, a moon you can actually run all the way around in 20 minutes.
Saturn actually has millions of moons if you count the boulders in the rings. If you don't count them, then where is the cut-off point? This debate has never been settled, and may require an arbitrary cut-off size to get a clean definition.
Table-ized A.I.
Why must everything be compared to Boulder, Colorado?
Where do we draw the line between classifying a stellar body as a moon or an asteroid? Do we simply base it on the fact that it's a piece of rock orbiting a planet or is there some other defining characteristic?
Ceres, the largest asteroid in our solar system, has a diameter ~950 Km in length, much larger than many of the so-called moons we've discovered.
In C++, friends can touch each others private parts.
makes about what, 700 or something moons now?
My Paintball Pics
nyuk nyuk
...but bigger than Little Rock?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If we throw a trashbag out of the the ISS does that become a moon? What about a bolt that is dropped when repairing a sattelite?
There must be some definition of a moon that includes some reasonable minimums -- like gravity or magnetic field.
Fight Spammers!
I'd say it's a moon when it's big enough to exert enough gravity to walk on, without worrying about being flung out into space.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Meanwhile to block big box stores the Boulder City council annexes the moons and declares them openspace.
Boulder now 30 some miles surrounded by reality and still hounded by a constant football scandal.
Property tax assessments to rise yet again.
Local bus service to the moons is be nickednamed trek, to compliment the hop, skip, jump and bound routes; However no trek service after midnight.
It seems like one (S/2004 S1) of the little worldlets may have been re-discovered since it may have been spotted when one of the Voyager probes passed Jupiter by in 1981, then christened S/1981 S14.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
A satellite is any object that orbits a planet, regardless of mass.
A moon is any natural object that orbits a planet, again regardless of mass. (so probes and debris don't qualify)
A planet is an object massive enough to become spherical under its own gravitationnal field, that orbits a star. An asteroid is any rocky object that orbits a star and doesn't qualify as a planet.
A moon doesn't have to be spherical, so that's why the two irregular moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos (captured asteroids), are still called moons. The rings of saturn are made up of millions of small "moons", but they are (rightfully so) considered a single entity.
1) I have to muse, when did Boulder CO become a unit of astronomical significance (and for the trolls: how many library of congress is that?)
2) Everybody keeps asking, but the reason these are significant is because
a) they orbit saturn (most asteroids orbit the sun)
b) they differ from the asteroids in the asteroid belt because, well, they are not in the asteroid belt
c) their orbit are actually located between two other moons, which is surprising because such area is under heavy bombarbment from other sun-orbiting asteroids and they should have been destroyed long time ago - this sheds light on our understanding of the kuniper belt, asteroids, saturnic satellite formation, etc etc.
That said, I couldn't make out the things on the picture, so i dunno... could be CCD noise? that would badly suck...
Extra! Extra! Scientists find two tiny rocks millions of miles away! Many surprised they haven't been seen before now!
An artists sketch of the new moons as seen from Earth through a high-powered telescope is shown here
:
This sig is part of your complete breakfast.
Even though they're orbiting Saturn, they're closer to Earth than Boulder, Colorado is.
And by the way, we don't call them "moons" here in Boulder. We refer to them as "planetary companions."
FYI: Boulder is where Mork and Mindy was set.
They are provisionally named S/2004 S1 and S/2004 S2.
Why? Just call them Boulder and Little Rock. But then again, maybe not. Some lawyer might sue. Do cities trademark their names?
What if the gravity is strong enough for a suicidally depressed person to walk on, but weak enough that a happy person with a little "bounce" in their walk goes flying off into orbit?
Of course the thought of that would be enough to make any astronaut upset.... so... wait... I guess that won't be a problem.
--Rob
Wow, I had no idea that 3/4 = 4/5! Thanks slashdot, this will surely save me a lot of needless calculating in the future.
In all seriousness, it's nice to see that there's still new things in the universe to discover that are actually within our reach, even if they are just small sterile rocks.
Maybe the Huygens probe will get eaten by something interesting...
I know Io, Jupiters moon, gets tugged until molten. So, what are the rings/dust/moonies made of? If they are the same materials as Io, what keeps Io from becoming a ring?
I don't think gravity tugs would do it alone. An impact with a comet into a good sized moon, now pulverized, would do it. So, the rings would be a mix of the comet/moon, probably very different. It would be neat to get more info. If ring could be sampled, bringing back two types of chunks, would argue strongly for impact. It would be a cheap way of sampling a comet?
Also, the density of the rings would make ideal for mining? I know asteroid belt is out there, but would it be worth processing one rock instead of attacting alot of iron fragments with a magnet, with the plus of having a methane atmosphere for fuel a short trip away. Atmosphere skip/collect methane+oxides=rocket fuel. Maybe. Trying to think on a planetary scale here.
This mind intentionally left blank.
The KKK a bunch of sheetheads? You decide!
The last time Saturn was visited, it had these "spokes" visible in the rings. Now, they're nowhere to be seen.
2 004_Interplanetary_Part_2/InterplanetaryDayAfter-P art2.htm
This report: http://www.enterprisemission.com/_articles/05-27-
Lists a large number of rather extraordinary changes that EVERY PLANET in the solar system has gone through in the last couple decades.
Personally I find it rather alarming. Massive oxygen appearing on Venus? Io hotter than Mercury? Radical new weather patterns on Neptune, and even Pluto? The gas giants radiating vastly more energy than they receive from the Sun?
Is this guy onto something big, or is he delusional?
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Now what we need to do, just to make sure the estimate is correct, is to place one of these moons directly onto Boulder, CO to see if it will in fact cover the entire city.
Now I know NCAR is there, which is cool and all, but NCAR is on the mountain, and should be O.K.
I mean, I just want to make sure they are correct about the size estimate. Not that I want to wipe Boulder off the face of the earth or anything like that. Why would anyone want to do that?
Who's with me? Who is with me? In the name of Science!
Only try to realize the truth:
There is no moon.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
What is the lower bound for something to be considered a "moon"?
Certainly meteoroids no larger than a small boulder are oribiting planets, but why are these objects not considered "moons"?
I think the citizens of Boulder will still fit if they squeeze together a bit.
MAKE YOUR TIME
There's a very interesting article at space.com entitled 'What is a Moon?'.
Is the surface area of the moon the size of Boulder, or is it the cross-section that has similar dimensions? Or is it by volume, based on the idea that only the dirt down to a certain depth can be considered to be within the city limits?
how many library of congress is that?
12. Definitely 12.
All this talk about moons, but no Uranus.
http://www.commaecho.com
"...The moons are approximately 3 kilometers (2 miles) and 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) across"
I don't get you're crazy system! How big is it in terms of VW Beetles?
'The boulders are approximately 3 kilometers (2 miles) and 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) across -- ...'
when do they find the smaller yet, black rectangular thing in orbit?
my god, it's full of stars...
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Even the most beautiful moon still doesn't compare to the wonders of Uranus.
G-Force music visualization
The site linked to by parent is down, but it appears to be a goatse link.
*Cthulhu not drawn to scale.
hahahahahaha
seriously.
you brightened a bad day for me.
thank you = )
^..^
Ain't that just the way of it? Some quiet planet, and when people really start looking, there's frozen bodies orbiting everywhere. It was probably one of those retrograde cyclic things.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
One of the major costs of living is housing, renting or buying. The housing market is kept massively over priced by speculation encouraged by the federal reserve system and it's legions of busywork middlemen skimmers and shillers introducing new, unearned artifically created capital into the market place and encouraging speculation by lower interest rates. "Here kid, borrow some more on what you already borrowed-no need to work for it, and you'll *make money* on it". Nutso. Buncoism. Keynesian Kartoon Kapers. It's acting as an "enabler" for postponing-but not stopping- the much needed correction in the market place. We would have a much lower cost of living if that practice was stopped. Telling people they can keep borrowing more and 'everyone will be a winner' is casino shilling hucksterism of the highest order. The current economy is akin to trying to build a rube goldberg mechanical gee-gaw contraption of springs and weights and flywheels perpetual motion machine-some of the schemes look really spiffy on paper, and fail miserably in practice. If their schemes of inflated debt, encouraging trading wealth production for wealth re arrangement, and inducing unsustainable expectations that you need do nothing but sit around and "make money" by borrowing then selling debt based paper then borrowing again on that really worked, we wouldn't have the highest rate of government deficits, the highest rate of trade imbalance, nor the highest rate of personal and corporate bankruptcy in two generations, if not longer. Even lowering interest rates has only slowed the crash coming, it hasn't stopped it. People finally "got it" on "irrational exuberance" with stocks, they have yet to get it with real estate and housing, although it's getting closer now. "Cost of living" is a function of expectations versus realities, and you can only keep borrowing so long before you actually have to work and produce. Designing an economy that denigrates wealth production in favor of wealth rearrangement is doomed to eventual collapse, and it will start happening once we can no longer suck in foreign capital. Right now they are dumping previously exported petrodllars back into US paper, but even that won't help much in the long run, as eventually it has to be recognized that debt purchasing debt can only lead to...more debt.
we now have a third metric to add to the existing system of measuring everything in pop news stories in "volkswagens" and "rhodeislands" (1), we can now hit that middle mark, "boulders", though it's not so middle...
the conversions for the VBR go something like this (2):
beetle ('classic' at 160" x 60" = 9,600 sq in = 66.67 sq ft footprint
boulder = 25 sq mi = 696,960,000 sq ft
rhode island = 1,214 sq mi = 33,844,377,600 sq ft
which means
10,453,877 beetles in a boulder
48.56 boulders in a rhodeisland
507,640,282 beetles in a rhodeisland
which would make a hellova traffic jam (3)
(1) also haven't read the journals of irrepreoducible results / AIR for a while so this could all seem cribbed - sorry if so
(2) (check my math, it's early still)
(3) virtually no change to downtown newport in the summer however
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Damn, if you sneeze on that moon you'll de-orbit it.... oh wait.. you should be wearing a helmet and suit.
Well if you sneeze it would make the inside of your helmet look...... na never mind..
What would you do without a monitor? Sit and look stupid behind a keyboard and a mouse
Hooray! Mod parent up! Grandparent down too, if you've got another point to spare ...
One simple rule for its versus it's
If any unmodified* human, can achieve escape veolocity under it's own power**, then it's not a moon.
;)
African or European?
Now feel free to mod me down
Pavlov. Does this name ring a bell?
saturnian? or did you mean to write saturn? Come on folks we can't make up new words just because we feel like it...
Be careful--new moon tonight.
'The staff in the hand of a wizard may be more than a prop for age,' -Hamá, the doorward
move Boulder CO out there?
somone has hacked your system. If you click on the link at the bottom of the page to see the replies below your current level. It comes up with some nigger BS story.
2 07 &threshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=160&tid=162&tid=14 6&tid=1&tid=14&mode=thread&pid=0
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118
Never been there. Now that I have this tidbit of information, I don't think I want to visit. Thanks.
The moons were there all of the time and everyone who looked at Saturn saw them-now they are "Discovered"
It might be smaller than Boulder, but it's just as "out there" as the people's republic.
"13 square miles surrounded by reality."
That's some big ass!
oh, I can feel some mother jokes coming up...
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
I propose that these moons be named "About the Size of Boulder, CO" and "Smaller Than That".
"At those sizes, I would think the satellites/moons would have to be rocky. Even if they were composed of frozen gases, as they approached the day side of their orbit, they would vent off gases, and probably even form a tail, though most likely not a noticeable one from our vantage point "
In that case Mercury would not have an atmosphere. Mercury's atmosphere is composed of exiting gases like a comet. Yet, Mercury is considered to be a planet with an atmosphere.