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

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

[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

"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.

cue the "Blade Runner" quotes

[ChipMonk]

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

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.

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!

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?

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.

"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"

[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.

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: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.