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Cassini's Got Pictures And Data
MythMoth writes "To celebrate the anniversary of the Cassini-Huygens probe's orbital insertion, NASA's JPL has a set of fifteen amazing photos from the past year. Meanwhile, the BBC reports that some of the latest science data from the mission reveals that Saturn's ring system has its own (thin) O2 atmosphere, and that the planet's rotation seems to be slowing!"
Cool about Cassini. NASA's Greatest Hits of the last few decades seem to be Lagrange Point planetary orbiters and the Hubble Space Telescope. I was going to credit the snake-bitten Shuttle missions for rescuing Hubble, but heck we're going to junk that.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
This looks like a mission very well done thus far and is the sort of thing we should do at every opportunity.
For the future, I'd like to see us mass-producing multi-use probes and sending small convoys of them out across the system. I'd also like to see more space telescopes sent out and about to capture data to send home. Imagine sending something about half the size of Hubble to orbit between Mars and Jupiter.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Can you clarify what you mean be "anymore"? Was there ever a time that people knew what the real planets "looked" like? Or even the unreal planets for that matter....most of everything we know is heresay and much of that is colorful heresay, to say the least.
Best of all, if you really want to know what the planets look like, these "false colored" images are the best thing after all because they pick out features that single sources of original data are obscuring or not picking up at all. It shouldn't be forgotten that this is data imaging, not a family picnic slideshow; the instruments being used to generate the data are not limited to the familiar visible-spectrum light camera that we are used to for our snapshots.
Still, I'm anxiously awaiting those holographic images you suggested. Now thats a nice enhancement!
There were several ways you could have asked that question without being utterly disrepectful, and without sounding like you're lashing out at the world.
The people you're talking about are hardworking and dedicated people at the forefront of exploration. If the sequence of their efforts at exploration isn't logical to you, consider the possibility that you lack key information fueling your basic assumptions, and frame your question with that in mind.
Otherwise, it's more difficult for the people who know the answers to cull the question from the troll.
Just an amateur astronomer, but :)
My first thought there (+grain_salt) is that Saturn must have suffered a grazing collision with a large body - probably the same one that created the rings - and the dispersion of the rings mass, like the recession of Earth's moon, is having the same effect on Saturn that it does here, slowing rotation. Unlike Earth's moon this would have to be an unstable system.
Only that seems like a *huge* number, given how fast Saturns' rotation is, and how massive it is *. So the impact must be recent - and it's pretty widely accepted, I gather, that Saturn's rings are very young.
If that figure for the rotational change is right - is it just the surface winds or something deeper? - then whatever created the rings was *very very* recent?
* Too tired to do the math, but wouldn't Saturn's low density contribute?
Cheers,
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
What amazes me is that no probes have yet been constructed in orbit, allowing far larger probes to be sent. You could easily send up components, park them near the ISS whilst people go bolt them together, then send it on its way.
Big camera? No worry. Need huge solar panels? No worry. Send them up piecemeal and build in orbit. Bus sized probes shouldn't be a problem.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?