The Fountains of Enceladus

EccentricAnomaly writes "Cassini has observed fountain-like plumes from the warm fractures near Enceladus' south pole. This confirms what had been suspected from an image taken last January. And seems to point to these cryo-volcanoes as being the primary source of Saturn's E-ring. There are also more images available from Cassini's raw images archive."

Comments

very intriguing

[iggymanz]

let's not launch a couple manned space missions and instead take the billions saved to plop a robot probe in one of these volcanoes to look for life in the underlying water layer.

Re:very intriguing

[HappyCakeOven]

We don't need to look for life in the volcanoes. These photos confirm what I've suspected all along: They're out there and they're ice fishing!

Re:very intriguing

[IAmTheDave]

...to plop a robot probe...

Oh sure, 'cause that's worked rather flawlessly in the past. Just ploppin them down.

Re:very intriguing

[iggymanz]

or they're in the water fishing for space probes

Re:very intriguing

[Ravatar]

No thanks.

How about we use the same money to save whats left of our planet? AFAIK, we have at least a few intelligent lifeforms here.

Re:very intriguing

[Angry Toad]

You can do that for a few million dollars? If that's true you really do deserve a grant.

  I could trivially name fifty things which cost more than a space probe and contribute less.

Re:very intriguing

[el americano]

I could trivially name fifty things which cost more than a space probe and contribute less.

You could trivially name fifty? I suspect many of your examples would be trivially refuted, which is probably why you didn't even come up with five.

We're supposed to take your word for it that you can?

Re:very intriguing

[king-manic]

No thanks.

How about we use the same money to save whats left of our planet? AFAIK, we have at least a few intelligent lifeforms here.

This arguement is counter productive we already spend resources int hat direction. The amoutn we actually spend on space exploration and science is minicule compared to other ventures such as the military.

Re:very intriguing

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing wrong with this planet.

Let me try to explain.

The generally accepted theory of the extinction of the dinosaurs is, of course, one in which the planet is impacted by a 30K feet long asteriod. The impact affected the entire globe, causing changes in the landscape, global firestorms, dust high in the atmosphere blocking out the sun, and mass extinction. In short, it "broke" the planet in a big way.

Despite all that, the planet is still here. In fact, I'd say it even worked out pretty good for we humans.

Nothing we humans do can hurt this planet. There's nothing special about us. In fact, human activity is as "natural" a process as wind, rain, and the aforementioned deadly asteroid. We are not separate from this globe: we are an integral part of it.

Of course, human activity could certainly leave the environment in a state incompatible with human life, this I do not argue. For this reason I would suggest that we learn to moderate ourselves such that the environment can continue to sustain our kind.

My motivation for making this arrogant suggestion is a selfish one; I would like us to continue to be. That is all. Thewre's nothing noble in it.

We humans are not the keepers of the planet. It keeps itself just fine. We only keep ourselves.

Re:very intriguing

[Angry Toad]

Actually I just don't have the time or the inclination to engage in extended debate on nonsense like this.

The Space Station, for one, pointlessly sucks up gigantic amounts of space science funding for no purpose whatsoever. You should like that one particularly, since cancelling it would involve keeping your eyes locked firmly on the ground.

An enormous list of worthless pork-barrel projects could be made with very little effort.

There's really not much point in debate however - if you can't understand the value of basic research I don't have anything much to say to you.

Re:very intriguing

[monkeydo]

Ok, I'll bite. How? What's wrong with "what's left of this planet" that could be fixed for a few million dollars? Could you end world hunger? Cure AIDS? Prevent the inevitable extinction (again) of most life on the planet?

Re:very intriguing

[avgjoe62]

An enormous list of worthless pork-barrel projects could be made with very little effort.

I've got a couple of bridges in Alaska I could sell you...

Re:very intriguing

[iggymanz]

well, the planet is more than 99.9999% rock and metal. But "hurting the planet" usually refers to harming that thin scum on it's outsides that we call "the biosphere"....quite possible we could permanently ruin that if we really tried.

Re:very intriguing

[el americano]

I wasn't looking for debate, I just wanted to see if you really had a point. Posting a wild claim without any supporting examples is suspicious. So, now we have 1 example and 49 unspecified pork-barrel projects that might contribute less to society than a space probe? Well, since you now think your original post was nonsense, I won't pursue it further.

And I'll let /.ers decide if the [admittedly expensive] International Space Station delivers nothing whatsoever.

as the bard Homer would say:

[jspoon]

Mmmmmm. Fountains of enchiladas.

Re:as the bard Homer would say:

[RatBastard]

Gir: Must obey the taco man!

Re:as the bard Homer would say:

[CheshireCatCO]

Actually... everytime we have a telecon disucssing Enceladus, we end up going down the street to the nearest Mexican place for lunch afterward because we end up craving enchiladas. It's great marketing.

Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

Since Cassini is so slow in releasing results to the general public, you may be interested in this discussion (including some neat image processing) by amateur astronomers: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showt opic=1729 This site usually get a jump on the official Cassini channels of about a week.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Pardon me, but Cassin is NOT slow to release its results. Some of these images came down in the past two *days*. And I'd like to note that they got posted to the JPL website almost instantly. That's actually rather unfair to us, since there's usually a one *year* propriatary period where the data are the kept by the people who put the work into designing, building, and operating the instrument. Thanks to JPL, anybody off the street can get up at 3 AM to grab the images of the website before we've woken up that morning, let alone gotten our coffees in.

Of course, amateurs are not bound be either rules for peer-review to get published or by NASA's process for press-releases, so their results will often appear on the web sooner than the offical findings. But they should also be treated with a certain measure of skepticism. Also, remember that the images that JPL posts aren't scientific quality.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[changcho]

Well said - it is not true (and it's unfair, reall) to say that the Cassini team is "slow" to post images.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[msauve]

That's actually rather unfair to us, since there's usually a one *year* propriatary period where the data are the kept by the people who put the work into designing, building, and operating the instrument. Thanks to JPL, anybody off the street can get up at 3 AM to grab the images of the website before we've woken up that morning,

What? Give the people who actually paid for the data equal access, why the nerve!

Maybe if you (and I'm assuming you're somehow earning money by using this data) paid for it instead of taxpayers, you'd have a legitimate complaint.

Show some appreciation, and quityerbitchin.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[black mariah]

His point, dipshit, is that any asshat can start spewing bullshit before people that actually know WTF they're talking about have a chance to scientifically verify the data in the proper way. It IS quite unfair, but then again fairness has never been a part of correctness.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[tetrahedrassface]

Im very proud of JPL, NASA, and everyone involved with this mission. And all of the other missions for that matter.
Im also proud that the data is released very quickly, and openly.
Its a good thing all around, and we in #space on freenode understand the sensitivities involved.
I assume when you speak of the enthusiast compositions you are referring to the Huygens data?
I understand that all non-official work should be treated with a dose of sceptisim, but some of the images produced by the channel were good enough to be used by the ESA.
(#space irc.freenode.net)
Don't take me the wrong way. I am a huge fan, and supporter and a member of the Saturn Outreach Campaign.
In fact i hope you understand that us geeks are most likely your biggest supporters.
We should be celebrating, not casting stones.
Peace, good luck, and congrats!

JPL is amazing,
D

Re:Amateur Analysis

[fireboy1919]

Also, remember that the images that JPL posts aren't scientific quality.

You got that right. IIRC, those are the images used in the "36% More Rock Ninjas Coming Out of the Earth than in Previous Decades" paper, presented in 1997.

Explains why they were able to post it so quickly, too. After all, it would take a lot of care to actually get things like that right. Maybe even more than peer review would require, since that's mostly concerned with the text. I'm sure that they recycled. Especially since I've spent the last eight years fighting hordes of rock ninjas.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[klaun]

Of course, amateurs are not bound be either rules for peer-review to get published or by NASA's process for press-releases, so their results will often appear on the web sooner than the offical findings. But they should also be treated with a certain measure of skepticism.

Of course, you meant to say that all results should be treated with a certain measure of skepticism.

Nullius in Verba and all that...

Re:Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

Then were are the results from Radar, Vims, etc? And ISS hoards their data releasing only the minimal trickle needed to keep NASA HQ off of their backs (to the point of degrading the official satellite ephemerides). The one year proprietary period you site is BS, if you read the Space Act that formed NASA, such a proprietary period is forbidden... and the instrument teams didn't pay for the spacecraft, in fact they were paid for their instruments and are paid to operate them, so they should release their (unobfuscated) data to the public in a timely manner.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

ISS does not hold back the data to a trickle. We're archiving at the rate set by JPL. One year after the data were taken, they're in the PDS.

Call it BS if you like, but the propriatary period is real and common practice with NASA missions. It's been part of every mission I can think of, anyway. The time and effort spent to design, build, and manage an instrument (let alone a mission) is HUGE. That's time out of a sciensist's productive time. If you let just anyone grab the data the instant that they're on the ground, the people who put the work in are not only doing more work than their collegues, they're actually at a disadvantage since they are usually still busy running the instrument so that they don't have as much time to devote to science.

And you're right: VIMS, RSS, etc aren't being posted to JPL's site. Kinda sucks to be ISS in that respect, doesn't it?

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Yeah, why should the people who didn't devote years of their lives and continue to devote 60-80 hours a week running the instrument be at a disadvantage? Reminds of that story about the chicken who wants to bake bread and no one will help her, but everyone wants to eat it afterward.

The taxpayers have every right to the data. The question is, should they get it at the same time as the people who have spent years making sure that the data arrive at all? By comparison, are you going to insist that the data collected in labs (under government funding) be open to the public as the scientists take it?

If you want to head down this road, you're not going to get data at all. Scienists take a severe hit to their careers to PI an instrument like this. If they didn't get something back, like a period where they could have first pass at making discoveries in the data, you'd be hard-pressed to get anyone to build the things.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Oh, I welcome the amateur community's involvement. Lord knows they do great work and they keep the professionals on our toes, which is a good thing. But I think that in all fairness that JPL has slid too far in their direction at the moment, since the way that they release the data right now almost guarantees that the amateurs will be making waves about news finds before we have a chance to spot them, make sure we're right, and then issue a statement (through channels). Really, even something like a one-week lag between downlink and release would give the team a chance to do our thing and still allow the amateurs to do theirs.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Good point. I meant to say that the peer-reviewed results could be treated with somewhat *less* skepticism than the amateur, unreviewed results.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[msauve]

If you want to head down this road, you're not going to get data at all. Scienists take a severe hit to their careers to PI an instrument like this. If they didn't get something back, like a period where they could have first pass at making discoveries in the data, you'd be hard-pressed to get anyone to build the things.

Well, that's pure conjecture, as those people actually get paid for their work (with the possible exception of some grad students), and without taxpayer funding, they wouldn't have their careers in the first place. Many get not only the data paid for by the taxpayer, but their salaries as well.

Do you really think they'd cut off their noses to spite their faces? The data is critical to their careers, of occasional minor entertainment value to the people who actually fund it. (Although some people actually like Tang!) Who do you think is going to care the most if it goes away?

Personally, I find the data occasionally interesting, but it has no (for 99.99% of it) other effect on my life or the lives of most other taxpayers (although it can provide some nationalistic bragging rights). I can find no ethical justification for spending taxpayer money on collecting it. I might throw in a buck or two now and then to help fund a private effort, but not if it were run by people with ingrateful attitudes like yours. Buncha people on the dole, not realizing who actually pays the bills, thinking they're entitled to preferential treatment.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Sure it's conjecture, but it's based on the data. If you poured several years of your life into building an instrument and weren't able to be the first to do anything with the data (or, more likely, were one of the *last*), you wouldn't do it. Academia is pretty viscious. You have be publishing or you're not going to get the job you want (or lose the one you have).

By your logic, government contractors would build spacecraft/bridges/ships/whatever at cost with no mark-up. Because, you know, they're getting paid, right?

There's not ungrateful about my attitude. I'm continually pleasantly surprised and thrilled by how well our nation supports science. Asking that the scientists who flush their careers down the toilet to make these things happen should have a fair chance to make the effort make up the career hit isn't ungrateful, it's just reasonable.

Are you, the taxpayer, not getting the data? Does a week or few make a difference to your life in any reasonable way? Has the modern technology age made you that impatient? If so, I think you have bigger problems than Cassini data.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[toblathe]

"Buncha people on the dole" I hope you're kidding... (?) Right, so being employed on a government project is akin to shamelessly recieving unemployment? (He/She has to be joking... Gotta be...) You're assuming that getting paid for doing a job is reward enough. I think his point is that when you've built a career, there's a lot at stake when you make any career decision. Choosing to work on a project must confer *some* fringe benefit, other than bragging rights and being able to pay your bills. Shouldn't the folks who've invested huge portions of their working lives in a project get some benefit other than a paycheck (which is not hefty, let me assure you)? Please don't knock the scientific enterprise. Don't knock spending a small amount of taxpayer money on something *peaceful* that helps expand our knowledge of the world. It's conjecture on my part, but I think most folks don't mind throwing a *couple* of bucks a year down the IRS rabbit hole so that we can have a NASA, an NSF, a DOE, etc.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[monkeydo]

Yeah, why should the people who didn't devote years of their lives and continue to devote 60-80 hours a week running the instrument be at a disadvantage?

What would that disadvantage be? Missing the opportunity to be the first to write about something? Do you really believe that you are entitled to that?

Since you are the one who knows WTF you are talking about, why would anyone care what joe shmo who's up at 3AM thinks about the pictures? Obviously he's too stupid to make any interesting discoveries anyway. So, is it about scientific discovery, or is about your ego? If it's the former, it benefits us all, and I couldn't care less who makes the discovery. If it's the latter, I'm certainly going to ask my Congressman to defund your little ego boost operation, and you can pay for it yourself.

Scienists take a severe hit to their careers to PI an instrument like this

I would think that scientists would also take a severe hit to their careers but not being able to spell "scientist".

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

"What would that disadvantage be? Missing the opportunity to be the first to write about something? Do you really believe that you are entitled to that?"

Careers are made or broken based on getting things published first. From a PR standpoint, the amateur community only ruins press-releases. Which is a drag, but not seriously problematic. (Although that can be a damper on a career, too. Getting into the mainstream media for a new result helps when hunting for jobs.) But other scientists are also out there and when they see these things, they jump on them and race to beat us to publication. That can easily wreck a person's entire career.

Why do you think that the general public is entitled to beat the scientists to the results? Are you also prepared to argue that you're entitled to a ride on Air Force One or to look at the CIA's current data?

I'll avoid commenting on your stooping to an ad hominem attack based on a typo. I think people can draw their own conclusions.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[toblathe]

Why get upset at someone for wanting first crack at the data they helped take? The point is that it DOES become public -- the public that paid for it owns it forever. It becomes part of the base of human knowledge. It's not ego; it's only fair that researchers on a project have some right to publish first. You said it yourself, it makes no difference to you who publishes it first. So I repeat, why get upset at someone for wanting first crack at the data they helped take? (BTW, please be sure to flame me if I mistyped something in my hurry to reply.)

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Oh, check you source. We're not degrading any official ephemerides. NASA takes those images on their own with ISS, not the team. They get the data they want.

ISS releases the full data at the same rate as every other instrument. But only ISS gets all of its images posted as JPEGs to JPL's site as they appear. That's not a trickle, nor done just to keep NASA off our backs.

Are all of your facts this bad? Because you're not filling me with confidence about your understanding of the inner workings of this mission, here.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[monkeydo]

Why do you think that the general public is entitled to beat the scientists to the results? Are you also prepared to argue that you're entitled to a ride on Air Force One or to look at the CIA's current data?

I don't think anyone's entitled to much of anything, except I think that the taxpayers are entitled to the output of projects they fund. Of course this means that the taxpayers can choose to fund things like the CIA that won't give direct access to all data. Next project you want funded, why don't you put in the proposal that the information must be reserved for you to have first publication rights, and see how far it gets. That's what private funding is for.

A ride in Air Force One, or a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, are scarce resources, and allowing me to have one would impose a cost on society to benefit a single individual. This is a bad thing. Freely disseminating probe data creates a benefit to society, and only imposes a cost on a few individuals like you. This is a good thing. So, your analogy nicely proves my point.

If your version of the discovery, or your analysis, is somehow better, more reliable, more thorough, more useful, etc, then you shouldn't be worried about press releases from amateurs. If the main stream media won't carry your stories because they are "old news" that sounds like an issue you need to work out with them. OTOH, if the stuff you publish isn't inherently more valuable than the stuff the amateurs put out, then I want my money back.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Wow, you're going out of your way to avoid getting the point, aren't you?

I've already established why being the first to make a press release or to publish is important. You haven't counter-argued that, just avoided it.

The "scare resource" argument doesn't really hold up, either. The data are also scarce. Sure, you can reproduce it easily, but the bits are finite and the amount of information in the data is finite. Giving anyone and everyone equal access at the word "go" means that the people who are spending much of their time managing the instruments won't get to publish at all, or if they do, they'll only get very limited results. The career field in academia is extremely competetive. (As far as faculty jobs go, there are something like four PhDs graduated for every post; obviously, there are other jobs availible, but there is obviously also a hierarchy of value in the positions.)

You *do* get the NASA data. Sure, you might have to wait a year to see it. But that's more than you get out of most goverment-funded research programs. Do you think scientists in government labs release all of their data within a year of acquiring it? The ones at universities? Of course they don't. NASA is doing MORE than most folks, and yet you still have to complain.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[msauve]

I think most folks don't mind throwing a *couple* of bucks a year down the IRS rabbit hole so that we can have a NASA, an NSF, a DOE, etc.

Let me be clear, I'm not making a blanket criticism of all research - some is imminently useful to society. I might draw the line beyond earth-orbital (satcom, GPS) and solar (don't take down my power/TV). I, and I believe the vast majority of taxpayers, can't see any real benefit from studying fountains in the distant solar system, however.

To your point, give people the choice of spending $10 on seeing a new Matrix movie sequel or seeing some pictures from a probe to Neptune and which do you think they'd choose? The reason government funding is "needed" for such projects is because most people wouldn't choose to fund them given free choice, government provides a means of forcing them. Counter arguments based on democracy and elected official are non-starters - people vote on issues which most directly affect them, not on whether the candidate is going to vote to spend some fraction of a percent of their tax money on something of minor interest but no real impact.

And, yes, it is "the dole," or else it would produce a measurable benefit to society. It's government funding (albeit sometimes interesting and/or entertaining) busywork, with no definite or even expected return. Being able to get paid to work in a field of choice which produces no measurable return on investment (if it did, GE or IBM would be sending probes regularly) is, yes, enough of a reward. People don't choose to be, say, an astrophysicist, because they're making a decision based on expected wealth or fame (if they are, they're obviously not smart enough to be one) - they're choosing something they're interested in / enjoy doing. That they're able to do so by the pure grace of the rest of society is something they should appreciate as a priviledge, not an entitlement.

I hazard to say that most scientific advancement, even "pure" science has come as a result of private investment - DaVinci, Newton, Gallileo were all funded by private patrons. Get Bill Gates to fund a probe, then feel free to keep the data to yourselves.

Finally, the attitude that the established scientific aristocracy has first rights to publicly financed data assumes a system where truth is absolute, and only to be decided by those in the high caste. If there's a problem with "amateur analysis," it's that the public has not developed a healthy skepticism, for "amateur" does not imply lack of quality. Einstein wrote the Special Theory as an amateur, and scientific professionals announced the discovery of "cold fusion". If the established scientific community feels threatened by poor amateur analysis, they must not have much confidence in the strength/rationality of their own conclusions, or their ability to communicate them.

I think the real reason for complaints about amateur analysis come from a fear of the knowledge that there are people actually willing to put effort and resource into it without being paid - and that is a threat to those who are. It's enlightened (and very non-altruistic) self-interest.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Wow, so much of that was... wrong. It's hard to know where to start.

"I hazard to say that most scientific advancement, even "pure" science has come as a result of private investment - DaVinci, Newton, Gallileo were all funded by private patrons."

Actually, for the most part these guys were paid by the people in control of the governments. The distinction between "private" and "public" is therefore unclear. When Galileo was paid to be the court astronomer in Florence, which is that? (How about when he was a professor of mathematics?)

I'll skip over the name-calling at the "scientific aristrocracy", assuming you just have serious issues and knowing that I'm not qualified to treat them. But you are quite wrong (or possibly dissembling) about Einstein being an amateur. He wasn't being paid as a researcher in 1905, but he was being paid to employed his scientific training. And he *did* earn at PhD in physics by going through grad school. Hardly what I'd call an "amateur". In fact, Einstein highlights the problem, here: he couldn't get a job teaching physics (despite trying). He hadn't yet distinguished himself, and the job market, being what it is, didn't permit him a desirable position.

The scientific community has no gripe with amateurs, as such. Your arm-chair pyschology not withstanding, nowhere has anyone said anything bad about them here. What we take issue with is having priority to things that literally affect our careers and our livlihoods snatched away from us because people like you can't stand the idea that the people who put in the work to get the data should have a chance to look at it before you do. Of course, there's a rather glaring question here: why do you care about getting an early crack at the data, given that you don't support the idea of pure research in the first place?

Re:Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

I know first hand that ISS was degrading the ephemerides for the rocky moons (which is odd that they are able to since the data for generating these ephemerides only partially comes from ISS). Maybe the policy has changed, but this was true as of last year.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[monkeydo]

I get the point just fine.

I've already established why being the first to make a press release or to publish is important. You haven't counter-argued that, just avoided it.

You've established why you being the first to publish is important to you, you haven't established that it is important to me. Your assertion that open access to data will drive scientists out of research isn't supported by the only data point I have access to: you. But, if closed access to data is so valuable to you, why isn't it in your contract?

Re:Amateur Analysis

[ultranova]

I've already established why being the first to make a press release or to publish is important. You haven't counter-argued that, just avoided it.

You have established why being the first to publish is important for your career. No one is arguing that. What is being argued is why should anyone care ? After all, the data is not yours. It was received from an experimented funded from public funds, conducted by scientists that received a salary from the same source. Therefore, the data belongs to the public; what you are arguing is essentially that you should be given exclusive rights to public property because it benefits you. Is it any wonder that you have trouble finding sympathy from members of said public ?

It can be that giving you those exclusive rights for a time won't harm anyone, and it might be reasonable to include them as part of your payment in addition to your salary. However, your argument that you are entitled to such exclusive rights automatically since you spent your time in this experiment is rubbish. Such things can be negotiated, and if they have been, then there's no problem; but you cannot simply declare that you have a right to keep others from data that belongs to them because doing so will help your career.

After all, computer programmers might spend a considerable amount of their time making and maintaining a program. Should they, rather than whoever paid their salary, own the copyrights to it as a result ? Same goes for factory workers, miners, and in fact anyone who produces anything. Why are you so special ?

Re:Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

The time and effort spent to design, build, and manage an instrument (let alone a mission) is HUGE. That's time out of a sciensist's productive time. If you let just anyone grab the data the instant that they're on the ground, the people who put the work in are not only doing more work than their collegues, they're actually at a disadvantage since they are usually still busy running the instrument so that they don't have as much time to devote to science.

The vast majority of the work done to get this data is done by people who don't even get acknowledged in the papers written by the instrument teams. Why do the instrument teams get special treatment not afforded to the members of the other teams?

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

And I know, from first-hand, that JPL has it's own data in that regard. The ISS people don't plan those observations and we don't control those data. The only way that there could be a problem there is if there were a timing conflict between a science observation and the nav team observations. And that could happen if it were *any* instrument wanting that time-slot and resolving it is a matter of discussion/priorities, not controlling the data.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Actually, most of them were acknowledged in the instrment papers. And the non-scientists who help with the data are often co-authors on the papers or at least thanked in the acknowledgements. (My officemate, for example.)

Now, it's true that all of the engineers and administrative folks are not acknowledged on a typical paper. But that would get horribly unweildy (the list runs for pages even without including all of the good folks at, say, JPL who are only peripherally involved) and it doesn't do their careers a lot of good to be recognized in an Icarus paper. And, come to it, their main interest, career-wise, in the instrument is building it, not the data. Just like my doctor wouldn't get much of a career-boost out of an acknowledgement at the end of a paper for keeping me healthy enough to do the science.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

It is in the contracts. Actually, I'm not sure how JPL got to publish ISS images to the web at all, but for ISS and all of the other instruments (as well as virtually all NASA missions), the data are typically embargoed to the team for a year. That's SOP, and I'm fairly sure it's in the contract.

Why any of this should matter to you isn't my concern. You obviously don't care about the scientists and only care about getting *your* hands on the data, so I can see that you aren't interested in anything involving being fair to anyone else.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

You're ignoring the fact that this IS part of how NASA operates missions. (Except for Cassini ISS images. Go figure.) I've already stated this. Eccentric Anonomoly can deny that it's true all s/he wants, but that doesn't change the fact that it is the case. For most instruments on most missions, it's standard operating procedure to let the instrument team keep the data for one year before it goes public. I'm not 100% clear on how NASA got to publish the data to the web since I'm pretty sure that that wasn't in the original contract. (I doubt that the web was much of a thought when the project started.)

So, considering the above, why should YOU get to see these data before that year is up? YOU are the one who wants to deviate from the contract/way things are done at NASA. What's your argument for needing to see the data as soon as they hit the ground?

Re:Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

ISS produces SPK files for the rocky satellites for the whole project

Re:Amateur Analysis

[msauve]

I'll note your lack of response in regard to the willingness of the general public to support scientific research as acceptance of my view. But if you don't, and still feel most people would be willing to fund extraterrestrial science, feel free to support replacement of government funding with voluntary funding, through some organization such as The Planetary Society http://www.planetary.org/home/. If you're correct, there's no risk.

for the most part these guys were paid by the people in control of the governments.

But not as government representatives. Newton had many patrons. It might be argued that Charles Montagu was part of the government, but his patronage was political, not economic. Newton's principle economic patron appears to have been John Thornton, a wealthy merchant and private citizen.

Galileo's court appointment occurred long after his refinement of the telescope and the writing of the Sidereus Nuncius, which were done while under private employment as a professor at Padua. Large government payment followed, but for rights to the telescope, for use in practical military applications, not for astronomical research. Implying that Galileo was government supported is misleading, as even the later Medici patronage was provided at the personal discretion of aristocracy.

"But you are quite wrong (or possibly dissembling) about Einstein being an amateur. He wasn't being paid as a researcher in 1905,"

"amateur - A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession." - Am. Heritage, 4th Ed.

Einstein's profession at the time was as a patent examiner, not a theoretical physicist, nor was his work on the Special Theory funded. To argue that his work on it wasn't amateur, in the accepted meaning of that word, is disingenuous. You might as well argue that Archimedes Plutonium http://www.iw.net/~a_plutonium/, the King of Science, is a professional.

My wife's got a degree in Political Science. Is she a professional scientist, even though she's paid to do accounting? Won't she be surprised!

"why do you care about getting an early crack at the data, given that you don't support the idea of pure research in the first place?"

I personally don't care, but support the rights of others who have funded the research, in true fairness. Why, as someone who depends upon public funding, do you want to bite the hand that feeds you?

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

So you're saying someone on the team didn't *analyze* the data fast enough? That's not what you originally claimed. You originally claimed that we sat on the data itself. Any data needed by the Nav team is (or at least should be) taken by the Nav team. We don't hold on to that data. (Hell, if we tried to hold on to any data that wasn't ours, JPL would just give it to whomever is supposed to have it. All data goes through JPL before we get it.)

Re:Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

ISS degrades the accuracy of the rock satellite ephemerides before releasing them to the project, i.e. mission planning, science planning, navigation, etc.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[monkeydo]

Why any of this should matter to you isn't my concern.

It's your concern as long as I am paying for the research. When your funding gets cut, you'll be begging to tell us why it's important to the rest of us. I'm sure that this project was sold as having some benefit for all of us, and not an ego boost for a small group of scientists. Why should I care about the scientists' sense of what's fair? You're doing a job for which you are receiving what you consider fair compensation (or you wouldn't be doing it). Beyond the contract you've agreed to, what you feel is none of my concern.

I'm not an amateur astronomer myself, so I don't have any particular interest in the images. However, I think discovery is more likely the more eyes are looking at the data. Since we're talking about publicly funded projects, it is appropriate that the we get the maximum return on our investement whether or not that makes you happy.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

Well I've done work that directly led to several discoveries used without acknowledgment.. hell I've even had my own figures from internal presentations used without permission let alone acknowledgment. Beyond lack of acknowledgment, I haven't even be able to see the final results before they're published (hell I haven't even been told after they're published). This is why I'm going to get the fsck out of JPL at the earliest opportunity and seek a university job in my field where I can get credit for my own work.

JPL is dominated by a scientist caste that views everyone else as support staff (i.e. some sort of grad student). Saying that we don't deserve to be acknowledged for substantive contributions because we wouldn't get a career boost is BS. If I bust ass and work overtime to make a difficult observation possible, I don't want to see some lazy asshole who was on vacation when I did the work take all of the credit just because they processed the data after it was downlinked.

Anyway I'm going to shut up now because if you (or others) figure out who I am from my posts, I'd be in for a smack down from on high. And although I hate my job, I have a family to care for and I can't loose my job just yet.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Oddly, the scientists at JPL feel the same way about the administrators.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Uh, no. Whatever the guys out there at JPL are feeding you, it's wrong. Which wouldn't surprise me; JPL has a lot of complaints about the Cassini teams operating their instruments from off-campus and I've noticed that the people they are sometimes rather hostile towards the instrument teams. (Admittedly, we probably play politics right back at them at times, but the hostility I've experienced seems to go beyond ordinary politics.)

If the data were set up by and for Nav, they get the actual data. I have been assured this by our people, here. In any case, there is no way we could keep them from JPL since JPL gets all data before we do. Hell, data used for navigation is seldom very useful for science since they tend to (intentionally) over-expose the images of the moons.

Which moons do you consider "rocks", anyway? As far as I can recall of the top of my head, they're all icy at Saturn.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

And, yes, if they used your figure, you deserve credit for it. I can't speak for things much outside of my own involvment, but I know that here at ISS any support staff who helps crunch data or produce figures for a paper gets an acknowledgement in the paper in the very least. I know of a number of cases where they have recieved co-authorship. So, yeah, sounds like you got screwed there. But I hope you aren't translating that into a feeling that all scienstists should be screwed as revenge.

And I hope you turn you feelings of oppression from above into proper treatment of the support staff who are nominally below you. I've noticed a tendency for people who complain they way you just did to be just as bad to the people below them as they claim the people above them are to them. (And for engineers who complain about being treated like second-class citizen to treat people outside of science and engineer with just as much distain as they claim they get. Just a personal observation that I found very frustrating when I noticed it.) But I am going to assume that you don't fall prey to those mistakes.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you are the one who knows WTF you are talking about, why would anyone care what joe shmo who's up at 3AM thinks about the pictures? Obviously he's too stupid to make any interesting discoveries anyway. So, is it about scientific discovery, or is about your ego? If it's the former, it benefits us all, and I couldn't care less who makes the discovery. If it's the latter, I'm certainly going to ask my Congressman to defund your little ego boost operation, and you can pay for it yourself.

The worst part is that these 'scientists' tat put embargoes on data release do so for their own careers at the expense of the nameless faces who put in 60-80 hours on a project that gets little publicity. Just look at the public enthusiasm for MER with its data sharing from day one approach to Cassini approach with it's raw images because we were forced to so lets bury them deep on the webpage and not post time information and add lossy compression to boot. And at JPL, public appreciation and press coverage of missions like MER and Deep Impact translate into much bigger raises and better job security than working on poor old Cassini. OMG, Cassini has found some amazing stuff... but the scientists play it down rather than point it out to the press so that they can get their crack at the great discovery. The only reason why they announced these Enceladus volcanoes is because it showed up on the amateur site first... if they had their way they would sit on it for a while longer.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

ISS is one of the worst in playing political games of any of the Cassini teams by far. Part of this politics is an edict that nav cannot produce ephemerides for the rocks: Janus, Epimetheus, Pan, Pandora, Methone, ...i.e. the small moons. The data from the nav team is sent to a representative of ISS who then produces the ephemerides that are degraded as per the instructions of the ISS team lead. This then makes it harder to plan observations of these rocks for everyone except for ISS.

If you've experienced bad treatment by JPL'ers is because of years of stupid political games like this being played by the ISS team lead. (but all of the instrument teams do this, RADAR is just as bad as ISS, maybe worse.) The engineers trying to fly the spacecraft are often caught in the middle of the teams petty feuds and political plots.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

I have never screwed a scientist with bad work on my part... and don't intend to.... And I have _one_ underling and I make sure he gets credit for his work even when others try to take credit for it. But I do intend to get out of JPL at the soonest opportunity and to do my work someplace with stronger scientific ethics.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[toblathe]

I think they would've sat on it for a while, yes. I support them for it. When the great observatories of the world make fascinating discoveries, you don't hear about it that day! Most scientists are not forced to do instant analysis on their data. The way science usually works is you get your data and you have TIME to analyze it before making announcements about what you've found. You publish in a professional journal refereed by your peers -- people qualified and experienced enough to make a thorough judgement whether your research has merit. Yes, that's the ideal case, but it really does mostly work that way. You must admit it's easier to look at raw Cassini imaging data and type, "Eureka! I've spotted so and so..." on your blog than to stare at a MER microscopic imager photo and know what you're seeing. Even more the case with non-imaging data. I can't decipher mini-TES data, maybe you can. So again, the way science *usually* works, you take the data = you get first crack at it. Knowing that, can you blame someone for getting ruffled that their data are on display? Yes, the scientific culture is hierarchical and sometimes stuffy and even closed-minded. But it works pretty darned well. And PR is the other side. There's a term in the news business for when someone else publishes your story before you do. Getting scooped. It applies in science as well. And when you miss the boat, it's gone. When a story breaks, the media don't wait for you to get ready. If the story's hot, they publish it. And if it gets posted to the web first by savvy amateurs, they will still publish it. So like I said, I for one do not blame the imaging people if they make the public wait a few extra days (or even a few weeks, months) to get their story straight and make a big splash. They've earned the right with their hard work. I don't see the need to get all indignant about want to peek over their shoulders 'cause you paid for it with your taxes.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

And the scientists are usually caught in the middle of the crap that flies around from the NASA administrators. Believe me, there's politics all around, here. I can point out cases of engineers within NASA pulling all kinds of shit at the expense of science, if it came to it. Although I have yet to hear anyone complain about the Cassini engineers, so be proud :)

Trouble is, NASA has become a bureaucracy, plain and simple.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

Excellent. Sounds like you definitely need to get out of there. Like I said, many of the scientists I've known at (or once at) JPL thought it was hell, too.

My point about screwing scientists was more about your argument that the data should go public as soon as it hits the ground rather than observe the standard priopriatary period. As I've argued, that's there to keep the scientists behind the mission from getting screwed for their efforts.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[EccentricAnomaly]

As I've argued, that's there to keep the scientists behind the mission from getting screwed for their efforts.

my point is that the current system lets some scientists screw others. The data should be free because it is taxpayer financed and any grad student should be able to use it in their research without having to sign up with one of the scientists of the project. Many of the scientists are not that competent and many are downright lazy... but they have a lock on the data anyway and use that lock to enslave their underlings. Freeing the data to the public in a timely manner (a week or even a month is fine) would help get rid of the deadwood. As it stands now, data isn't even released after a year... (where's the SOI data? Ta data? hell the Jupiter flyby data?) It should be out there and easy to get to so that kids can do science fair projects with it, and amateurs can process it and have fun with it. It's downright shameful the way Cassini scientists hoard their data.

Re:Amateur Analysis

[CheshireCatCO]

The SOI and Jupiter data have been delivered to JPL long since. (It was due, and it was in, by 1 July.) I know that for a fact since I know the person who delivered it and I have no reason at all to think he has lied to me that he mailed the DVDs and the JPL acknowledged receiving them. If it hasn't been put on the PDS yet, then that's JPL's failure, not ours.

As I've said, the one year propriatary period is standard NASA contract. And as much as you might think it's unfair, it would also be unfair to the people who spend years of their lives putting these missions together to not get first pass at the data. This prorpriatary period is how we establish our names and that's how we end up landing grants to pay our salaries, after all. If you spend time making the mission happen, that's time you're not publishing papers and therefore falling behind your collegues in this competition. And you'll notice that there isn't a lot of bitching about the one-year period from the scientists (even ones not on the teams). That should tell you something.

ISS has agreed to release the JPEGs as they come down on the JPL site so that amateurs can play with them right away. As I said, that's above and beyond the contract and it means that a lot of our discoveries get announced by the amateurs before we can get the releases through the NASA bureaucracy, rather muting our impact. But still you want more. Getting greedy there, aren't you?

And sure, the current system lets some people screw others. Want to show me a system that doesn't? You're proposed system is as bad, probably worse.

"hot spot"?

[Amouth]

hot spot "temperatures observed within this region reached as high as 110 Kelvin (-260 Fahrenheit)."

ok.. now if i remember correctly 0 K means that not even the eletrns move.. and 273 K is where water freezes.. so this is more than half way there and this is the hot spot.. what is the cold spot like?

i am not trolling i am jsut currious.. maybe they jsut do werid things when it gets bloddy cold but being able to have eruptions that trow water out of orbit seems a little crazy.

Re:"hot spot"?

[MightyMartian]

Well, all things are relative, and warmer than damn cold, even it's almost-damn-cold, is still warmer. Beyond that, I'm assuming that any substantial difference in temperature are going to produce pretty interesting effects.

Re:"hot spot"?

[imsabbel]

its not all that scary as long as your gravitiy well is shallow and your atmosphere is thin.

This has nothing really to do with the temperature per se, its more like a side effect.

Also, considering that the background of the universe is only 2.73k, 110k deserves the designation "warm".
I mean, its even warm enough to evaporate nitrogen...
(also, at 0K everything still has the zero point energy, i.e. the 0.5h_bar you can never shave off those pesky harmonic osszillators. Thats for example the reason why helium wont become solid even at 0k and zero pressure...)

Re:"hot spot"?

[CheshireCatCO]

Considering that Enceladus has an albedo of nearly 1, it's surface temperature is really, really low. (An albedo of 0.95 gives a surface temperature of 42 K.) So 110 is actually pretty impressive. And a perfectly black body at that distance should have a surface temperature of 90 K.

Re:"hot spot"?

[nagora]

And a perfectly black body at that distance should have a surface temperature of 90 K.

What is the formuthat for calculating black body temp as a function of rotational speed and distance from the sun?

TWW

Re:"hot spot"?

[4D6963]

As someone already said before, it's relative to other regions.

Reminds me of Triton's geysers. Temperature over there is a few tens of Kelvins, and a difference of about 4 K is enough to create those geysers.

Re:"hot spot"?

[CheshireCatCO]

T = 285 K ((1-albedo)/distance^2)^(1/4), where distance is in AU. This assumes a "fast" rotator, but it's a pretty good approximation for a moon. Also, it sort of assumes that the moon doesn't spend a lot of time in the planet's shadow. And it is, of coruse, a globally averaged temperature. The poles should actually be a lot colder.

Re:"hot spot"?

[forkazoo]

What exactly does "fast" rotator mean in this context? Do you know how much of a difference there would be in something tidally locked to the sun? Intuitively, it seems like a body absorbing X amount of energy ought to have the same average temperature, regardless of which side it comes from. Of course, intuitively, quantum mechanics and relativity don't work either, so I've learned to ask questions instead of trusting my intuition! :)

And, since you work with Cassini... Random question, not really your department... I understand that there exists some radar data for Titan's terrain. Do you know if this is readily available in an easy to use format like the MOLA data from Mars Global Surveyor? I've been starting work on some 3D renderings of Mars using the mola data... Would be fun to do some similar stuff with Titan. :)

Re:"hot spot"?

[CheshireCatCO]

Figure "fast" is a period of less than a few tens of hours. Earth, Mars, the giant planets and their moons are pretty good in that respect. Venus and Merucry... not so much. It turns out that a slow rotator actually has a very different average temperature, but that's because a blackbody emits as T^4 rather than linearly with temperature. (The difference is therefore a factor of something like the fourth-root of 2, if I'm doing this right. I might be, hard to say with this headache. I might also be summoning a dark lord, so feel free to put any requested favors just in case.)

In effect, the thing to remember is that the temperature is set by incoming and out going energy balances. The temperature only enters that formula as its effect on the outgoing energy.

As for Titan: I don't know for sure. But I'd wager that the data are going public no later than a year after they were acquired. So I'm guessing 1 April is the delivery of the DVDs to JPL and then JPL should have it up... er, depends on how fast JPL is. Assuming that these data are going to be archived the same was as NASA data are, mind you. (Were we talking Cassini data or Huygens data? That might make a difference.) I'd keep an eye on the Planetary Data System around that time.

Re:LP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuff that matters, huh?

cue the "Blade Runner" quotes

[ChipMonk]

"If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes..."

Re:cue the "Blade Runner" quotes

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark off of Tanhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time...like tears, in rain. Time to die.

I you think The Fountains of Enceladus are cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait till they get pictures of The Geysers of Uranus.

Re:I you think The Fountains of Enceladus are cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this an obscure Tub girl reference?

Re:I you think The Fountains of Enceladus are cool

[afaik_ianal]

Why do so many slashdot moderators hate the Uranus jokes? I personally reckon their just Uranus retentive...

Re:I you think The Fountains of Enceladus are cool

[booch]

There are so many Uranus jokes, I think we should rename the planet. I suggest "Urectum".

(obFuturamaReference)

E-Ring, huh?

[0uchMyLiver]

Let's hope Saturn has better writers than NBC.

E-ring

[game kid]

This confirms what had been suspected from an image taken last January. And seems to point to these cryo-volcanoes as being the primary source of Saturn's E-ring.

I always thought those Defense Department guys were out of this world. I never thought they were from an outer planet.

To quote one of NBC's worst TV enemies...

[game kid]

D'oh!

Enchiladas

[game kid]

I guess that makes Homer a spoony bard then.

F ring a spiral! Read all about it!

[Darius Jedburgh]

All this news about Saturn and no mention of the news that the F ring is not a ring but actually a spiral!

Re:F ring a spiral! Read all about it!

[Thing 1]

At least it's not a braid...

Re:F ring a spiral! Read all about it!

[Photon Ghoul]

Hey, interesting thanks for posting that.

Also... nowhere in TFAs is the E-ring connection to Enceladus mentioned. Unless I just somehow missed it.

Slow news today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slow news today? watch some euromusic http://www.interactivehuman.com/

Sounds like an Arthur C Clarke novel

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a good title for an Arthur C Clarke novel.

Ammonia hydrate

[amightywind]

Pure H2O is frozen rock solid at 110K. But H2O-NH3 ices are not. Try mixing 50% ammonia and 50% water together and putting them in the freezer. The mixture will not freeze but will just become more viscous. Low temperature mixtures of H2O, CO, CH4, or N2 have similarly weird properties. Check this out. The compositions of Saturn's icy moons have not been well established. But indirect evidence like eruptions on Enceladus, or cometary outbursts, suggest exotic icy chemistry.

Re:LP!

[HermanAB]

Well, it isn't anti-matter.

Looks like another place to search for life....

[Luminary Crush]

What was interesting to me was this diagram:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image -details.cfm?imageID=1681/

In JPL's warm-spot modelling for Enceladus there is an undersurface ocean heated by one of the two now-familiar forces of tidal heating or radiological decay heating (though the former seems more likely).

So the statement goes: "where there is liquid water, there could be life". Do we have another Europa on our hands here?

No manned space missions == less funding

[David Hume]

let's not launch a couple manned space missions and instead take the billions saved to plop a robot probe in one of these volcanoes to look for life in the underlying water layer.

I think you may be ignoring another effect of no (or to be more precise and fair to you, fewer) manned missions over time -- i.e., less political support for space exploration and lower funding.

People will support a certain amount of funding for heroism, Star Trek, to boldly go... or to at least feel we are on the way there. They will pay far less to support inanimate objects in space. Boring... for most people.

Perhaps, in the short run, the savings from eliminating, or limiting, manned flights would be greater than the loss of funding. I suspect over the long run it would be death.
 

Re:No manned space missions == less funding

[iggymanz]

really?, I think the robotic exploration of mars and outer planets every bit as exciting as moon walks were. And no chance of astronauts being vaporized. Maybe we should put manned space missions on hold until we develop craft that aren't world's largest chemical bombs with low-end tactical nuclear yields. There's no scientific achievement that's been done by man in space that couldn't be done faster, better, cheaper, and safer by machine.

Re:No manned space missions == less funding

[4D6963]

I don't completly agree with that, although there's some truth in it, some unmanned missions make the NASA popular, just look at Hubble Space Telescope, although we can argue that it needs manned missions to fix it, the reason why it's so popular is because it makes such nice images, nice popular images that are hardly even usefull.

In the example of the HST, it's popularity is due to the public communication around it, not because some men go there to rescue it. In other words, manned missions are not required in order to get public support, spectacular looking ones are.

Re:No manned space missions == less funding

[Locke03]

Not that any of the parents post isn't true, it is, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that there's a lot of people on here (me included) that would just about sell our souls to be able to take a ride on one of those bombs, risks be damned. Joe Sixpack isn't intrested in scientific discovery (I know, I live with a bunch of them). They like adventure (shuttle missions or especially something like Apollo) or pretty pictures that look nice on their desktop. And as to the "faster, better cheaper", it seems like NASA should focus on 2 out of 3.

Re:No manned space missions == less funding

[ultranova]

I think the robotic exploration of mars and outer planets every bit as exciting as moon walks were.

The problem is that it is also utterly useless. Sending probes to Mars has no chance of giving any results that would get us closer to having cheap interplanetary travel. We, as a species, must expand. On Earth every habitable environment has been inhabited. We either expand to space or we stagnate. We need a new frontier; space is the only place left.

In my opinion, we need to concentrate resources into developing better (cheaper and safer) ground-to-orbit engines. Once you're in orbit, it's (relatively) easy to go further; getting to orbit is the hard part.

Maybe we should put manned space missions on hold until we develop craft that aren't world's largest chemical bombs with low-end tactical nuclear yields.

Unfortunately, it takes a certain amount of energy to lift mass into 250km (LEO) and accelerate it to a speed of 7-8 km/s. This energy has to come from somewhere; if it comes from chemical fuel, the end result will be what you descriped.

Nuclear-powered rockets would solve the problem, but they have technical and PR issues. Oh well, maybe the newest attempt at cold fusion, which was reported by Slashdot some time ago, will actually work, in which case it could give us a cheap orbital spacecraft.

There's no scientific achievement that's been done by man in space that couldn't be done faster, better, cheaper, and safer by machine.

Please explain how you'd go about examining the long-term effects of zero gravity environment on human body without sending said body to space ?-)

Re:No manned space missions == less funding

[iggymanz]

Putting people in tin cans is useless to the long-term goal of colonizing space. What is really needed to go in that direction is robots, robots, robots. Robots to mine asteroids and moon, robots to assemble and walk space elavators, robots to survey and explore for resources and for the REALLY long term build huge telescopes in space so we can identify candidates for habitable planets.

Glad you brought up long-term effects of weightlessness. Let's also wait until we can build large, spinnable craft that give people a proper 1 g environment so their bone structures doesn't rot.

bah old news

[Anonymous Coward]

it's the extra-terrestial version of 'raid'

That's what your link returns

[Anonymous Coward]

Error Executing Database Query.
Invalid data 1681/ for CFSQLTYPE CF_SQL_INTEGER.

The error occurred in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/cassini/multimedia/images /image-details.cfm: line 70

68 :
69 : AND I.StatusID = 1
70 :
71 :
72 :

SQL SELECT I.imageID, I.categoryID, I.subCategoryID, I.imageTitle, I.imageType, F.imageFileName, F.imageHeight, F.imageWidth, C.caption, I.imageAlt, I.imageReleaseDate, I.imagePNumber, M.metadataKeyword, M.metadataDescription FROM tblImages I INNER JOIN tblImageFiles F ON I.imageID = F.imageID INNER JOIN tblImageTypes T ON F.imageTypeID = T.imageTypeID INNER JOIN tblCaptions C ON I.captionID = C.captionID LEFT JOIN tblMetadata M ON I.metadataID = M.metadataID WHERE I.imageID = (param 1) AND F.imageTypeID = 3 AND I.StatusID = 1
DATASOURCE cassini
Please try the following:

* Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
* Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.

Browser swcd/5.2.0040
Remote Address 137.78.99.65
Referrer http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/2 8/2320211&tid=160&tid=14
Date/Time 28-Nov-05 07:51 PM
Stack Trace
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java.sql.SQLException: Invalid data 1681/ for CFSQLTYPE CF_SQL_INTEGER.
at coldfusion.sql.Parameter.getMappingValue(Parameter .java:259)
at coldfusion.sql.Parameter.getMappingValues(Paramete r.java:35)
at coldfusion.sql.InParameter.setStatement(InParamete r.java:29)
at coldfusion.sql.ParameterList.setStatement(Paramete rList.java:104)
at coldfusion.sql.Executive.executeQuery(Executive.ja va:978)
at coldfusion.sql.Executive.executeQuery(Executive.ja va:886)
at coldfusion.sql.SqlImpl.execute(SqlImpl.java:236)
at coldfusion.tagext.sql.QueryTag.doEndTag(QueryTag.j ava:447)
at cfimage2ddetails2ecfm1763191402.runPage(/usr/local /apache/htdocs/cassini/multimedia/images/image-det ails.cfm:70)
at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java :147)
at coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(Inclu deTag.java:357)
at coldfusion.filter.CfincludeFilter.invoke(Cfinclude Filter.java:62)
at coldfusion.filter.ApplicationFilter.invoke(Applica tionFilter.java:107)
at coldfusion.filter.RequestMonitorFilter.invoke(Requ estMonitorFilter.java:48)
at coldfusion.filter.PathFilter.invoke(PathFilter.jav a:80)
at coldfusion.filter.ExceptionFilter.invoke(Exception Filter.java:47)
at coldfusion.filter.BrowserDebugFilter.invoke(Browse rDebugFilter.java:52)
at coldfusion.filter.ClientScopePersistenceFilter.inv oke(ClientScopePersistenceFilter.java:28)

Re:That's what your link returns

[Llywelyn]

Of course, it was too much trouble to remove the trailing / that crept in, so you had to post the error message?

The Fountains of Enceladus...

[Caspian]

I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate...

"False-color"

[NthDegree256]

One thing I'm constantly curious about is the degree to which "false color" should be taken. I understand that the purpose of false-coloring is to enhance details and make certain features visible that would otherwise be imperceptible (outside of the visible band of light, too faint, etc.) but I also want to know what these bodies would actually look like to the naked human eye.

Obviously, processed and filtered images are important, and very fascinating (case in point, many of the gorgeous images of the sun,) but it also diminishes the awe, in my mind, to look at a photo of a nebula or moon and realize, "this is not what it actually looks like."

Re:"False-color"

[4D6963]

Here the use of false colors is so we can realize better what the gradient's like. The problem with the real color image (the b&w one that's unfiltered) is that, due to how Cassini saves it's images, it has much more grey's than our screens can display. We only can display 256, as Cassini's image contain 4096 (not sure), thus, false colors provide a more detailed gradient.

Re:"False-color"

[Java Ape]

I can vividly remember the first time I got to use a "big" telescope - it was the 24.5" scope at Goldendale. I'd been reading "Sky & Telescope" for years, and had made frequent use of a very low-grade refractor. Finally I was going to see deep-space objects they way they looked in the glossy color photos. I dialed in the Ring Nebula (M57), put my eye to the lens . . . and saw a dirty smudge that looked like someone forgot to clean the eyepiece. When I scanned the scope slightly, however, the smudge stayed fixed in space, it was M57. I couldn't believe it -- I scanned several other nebula, with similar results.

I was heartbroken -- the human eye is a lousy instrument for astronony, and even a couple tons of telescope can't fix that. That day my dream of seeing the horsehead in technicolor died.

On the other hand, I soon discovered radio astronomy. Since all the images are false-color interpolations, somehow it didn't bother me that I couldn't "see" the images with my eyes. I got pretty good at jiggling color maps to make aesthetically-pleasing and accurate images. False color is a wonderful technique, and can readily bring out subtle details invisible to the eye. I confess, however, that I long for a magic telescope that would let me see the rich and subtle details of space in real time.

Huygens results on dec. 8

[Herve5]

For Cassini I don't know, but I understand Nasa and Esa will publish the first "extensive" set if results concerning Titan on dec. 8, with a press conference in Esa tomorrow Nov. 30. All will also be on the Nature website on the 8.

Moderate insults insightful, motherfucker!

[Hitto]

Wow. Just wow. I golf clap at the elevation of the fucking debate here.
And guess what, I'm going to be the one who'll be motherfucking modded troll or flamebait because I actually dared criticize the cock-smokers who hand out their fucking mod points

That's five insults, mod me +5 insightful!

And I

[imsabbel]

am annoyed by the constant whining about the use of false-colors.
Want to see what it really looks like? A very dark blob with nearly no discernable details because its so dark.

Tubgirl?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Goggles! They do nothing!!!