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Cassini Shows Close Up of Iapetus

Posted by michael on from the looks-rocky dept.

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."

3 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Re:If that's no space station, what is it? by dn15 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    And I'm concerned that whatever did it might still be bouncing around the universe somewhere.
    Even if it is, does it matter? I don't see how this would be any greater cause for concern than the objects that made other huge craters on other planets/moons/etc. I mean, respectfully, it's not news that there are big things floating out in space, or that some of them have collided with other objects. And if it does head our way, I have faith in Bruce Willis.
  2. Re:I'm more worried about Mars. by mpthompson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just a guess on my part, but the object in the crater looks more like dunes of sand blown into and protected by the crater than an intact blob of something that fell from orbit. Regardless, it would be interesting to see a higher resolution picture.

  3. Re:Hyugens by johannesg · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I can do both, but I'm Dutch so that helps ;-)

    In fact my last name, happily obscured in this forum, also has the same "uy" and the hard "g" sounds, and I know from experience that there is absolutely no way for english speakers to pronounce it correctly. Usually I let people stumble a few times and then tell them to call me by my first name.

    I cannot begin to spell "Huijgens" phonetically, but I can tell you this: the common english pronunciation, "Joogens", is wrong. The "H" is the same sound as in the word "help", the "uij" doesn't exist in any English word as far as I can tell but it isn't "oo" or "oi", and the "g" is proncounced more like a short, rolling "r".

    I'm not sure if "Reuters" was originally a Dutch name, but if it was the "eu" sound is mispronounced as well - it shouldn't sound like "oi".

    No doubt some slashdotter who knows how to spell phonetically will come to my rescue and tell you how to pronounce both ;-)