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Cassini Shows Close Up of Iapetus
dazza101 writes "The Cassini spacecraft passed within 72,000 kms of the Saturn moon Iapetus yesterday, taking a series of spectacular images of this intriguing moons rugged surface. An excellent prelude to what promises to be one of the major stories of the new year, the plunge of the Huygens probe into Titan's atmosphere on January 24."
I have a hard time believing that's a natural formation. And I'm concerned that whatever did it might still be bouncing around the universe somewhere.
Anyone have any idea what could have caused a formation like that?
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Cassini Hyugens sounds like the name of a Scandinavian supermodel or something.
:-(
:-/
And here I was hoping for some spectacular pictures
What do I see? Big round thing with holes. Different, but not the way I imagined
The article submitter is just trying to make sure nobody shows up so the tickets wont be sold out.
Iapetus: Greek Mythology. A Titan who was the father of Prometheus and Atlas and an ancestor of the human race. Why do we name everything using greek mythology? I mean, sure it sounds cool... but so does foshizzle.
....also many more images if you go straight to the raw feed.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
How does this promise to be one of the biggest stories of the new year? There are tons of rocks out there. What is so special about this one that will make it a huge news story in '05?
Did anyone else notice the fact that the main picture looks like any other picture of the earth's moon?
(No, you won't get it if you didn't read the book).
Or, more precisely, the geometric object that crated on mars:
The mars golf ball.
At a guess, it's a glob of molten rock that condensed into a sphere in orbit before hitting the surface again. But that still doesn't make me want to see more detailed photographs and information about it so very, very badly. It would probably be one of the most impressive sights on the Martian surface.
Yikes, everyone take a look at this one:
Amazing detail photo
Can't wait for others of this caliber!!`~ Made me weep!!
(it's a joke son)
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Check This out! It looks like a streaking UFO in one of the raw images.
on second thought, try this server instead. Seems to be moving rather faster than the now /.ed "saturn.jpl.nasa" one.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/ casJPGFullS06/W00003604.jpg
look it made Cassini take LSD!!!
Call me when they find a monolith...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperation between NASA, the European Space Agency and ASI, the Italian space agency.
The Huygens plunge is January 14'th, not the 24'th :) 2 Weeks is hard enough to wait for! :)
Be True, Unbeliever
the large dark area? A super gigantic crater?
Heh, if you have a webcam that can withstand solar radiation, temperature extremes, and run for 7 years with no problems, I'd ebay it :P
Be True, Unbeliever
10 Geek points for sucessfully pronouncing "Hyugens"! Bonus if you can also pronounce "Reuters" sucessfully.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Interesting image. The craters look pretty commonplace--but what caused the ridge? It appears to enclose a low-lying area. The border seems too jagged to be a large crater.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke described Iapetus as having a black circle painted on it, with a white circle within.
When one of the Voyager probes photographed Iapetus, a "circular" black area was found with a smaller white area within.
Why is this interesting? 2001 was published in 1968. The Voyager probes didn't visit Jupiter until 1980 (V1) and 1981 (V2).
That's right. All your base.
Checked out the raw images - this one shows very clearly the black side of Iapetus and the white side. Very strange....
/ casJPGFullS07/N00026377.jpg
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw
Isn't Huygens plunging into Titan on Jan 14th??
they have the technology to check nasa websites for facts. yet they don't do it. go on, click the preview button before posting articles. i DARE you.
/. as gospel" people out there looking for word on the landing 10 days late.
submitted article says the probe will land on titan jan. 24. oddly, cnn has it jan. 14. even more odd, nasa's cassini website even says jan. 14.
there will be a lot of sorry "take
Also, resolution ain't everything. You can bet that this camera, like the mars landers and unlike your generic handheld digi-camera has a CCD an inch or two wide rather than a few millimetres. Good light sensitivity makes up for a lot. Big chunky pixels in the CCD mean fewer dead black spots from radiation and suchlike as well.
It is clear to me that Mimas is actually the Death Star. I wonder if it fully operational?
Would you eat Mimas if it were made of spare ribs? It's a simple question.
It plunges on January 14th, not 24th.
Press Release
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
That's no moon..
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I've noticed in a lot of the images, there appears to be a ring of mountains around most of Iapetus's equator: Here, here and here.
I'm no scientest, but is it possible that this moon once had a ring system like Saturn itself? Over time the ring particles fell out of orbit and formed the mountains along the equator.
...with the probes being crashed into things.
Whatever happened to sending them on their way out the solar system with gold discs in them containing the sounds of Earth and diagrams to show the little green men where to find us?
Oh well, maybe it's just yet another thing George Lucas has to answer for.
The Huygens probe will enter Titan's atmo on 14 January, NOT the 24th. Is it so much to ask that the dates you report are accurate?
Are they particles that are part of Saturn's rings?
(There are also several white dots and a white streak in front of Iapetus, but I assume that they are caused by artifacts, cosmic rays, or transmission problems.)
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Looking at this moon I am really thankfull the earth has an atmosphere, or we would be as poc marked as this moon is.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Those streaks are stars, making trails as Cassini moves during the long exposure of 82 seconds.
Huygens dives into Titan on Jan 14.
Ah, OK, thanks for the info.
I didn't know about the long exposure times, but I guess that it makes some sense, being so far from the sun and all.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
On a really big breast.
That's awesome that the probe will be entering Titan's atmosphere in a couple weeks. I hope it stays alive and chills on the surface for a couple hours.
http://picserver.org/view_image.php/133850U4AXE5/p .jpeg
1280 by 1024, Grayscale. All the detail is on the right side of the screen, with the picture horizontally flipped. Mac users may want to get this file:p .jpeg
http://picserver.org/view_image.php/87BDBMSS2981/
so the detail won't be under the icons. Sure, this could be done by anyone, but I pride myself on my uselessness(es?).
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
A dreaming god. And it's due to wake up this Friday at 2:00 PM.
Stars? Did you not notice that the big streak is in the middle of the shot of Iapetus? That would mean the 'star' would have had to pass between the camera the moon. I somehow can't see that being the case.
In light of the original comment referring to the NASA image at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA05423 the previous comment was not a troll but a humorous comment which referred to the "Pre-School" episode of the cartoon "South Park". For an episode synopsis, see: http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServ let/showid-344/epid-372425/.
If you have received this message without having requested it, it is because someone attempted to use your username or e-mail address. It was mostly likely an innocent mistake, and they are not getting your password, so you can safely disregard this message.