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New Uranus Moons and Rings Discovered
Patrick Furlong writes "CNN reports that the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered two new moons and two new rings around Uranus. The moons had been imaged by Voyager 2 in 1986 but were not recognized as moons at the time." More from MSNBC, and the official Hubble Site. From the CNN article: "The Hubble images also confirmed the existence of another moon, Perdita, which was first identified in the Voyager 2 pictures but had eluded telescopes ever since. Many moons of Uranus are named after characters in Shakespeare, and these new moons follow suit. Mab is named for Queen Mab, who is the subject of a famous speech by the character Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet.'"
Leela: "I don't get it."
Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?"
Professor: "Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you."
Fry: "Hehe, no, no, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here."
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
At this point, the question seems to be, do gas giants ever not have rings? They seem to be celestial vacuum cleaners, attracting all sorts of debris. It's a good thing too, as it probably kept the orbital bombardment of Earth to a minimum.
Boil and Pimple.
Thank you, I'll be here all night!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How that deserved a troll mod i have no idea, maybe we need a -1 unfunny, but troll ain't the substitute.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
So, tell me again why they're getting rid of the Hubble telescope?
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene iv, lines 49-103 (Sparknote analysis)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The last time Uranus was in the news I got quite a kick out of watching TV news anchors squirm as they talked about Your Anus.
Rings around Uranus... Moons...
This all sounds like a Goatse moment if I've ever heard of one
Mustn't click the wrong link...
Im pretty sure this brings the list to 23?
* Cordelia - 1986
* Ophelia - 1986
* Bianca - 1986
* Cressida - 1986
* Desdemona - 1986
* Juliet - 1986
* Portia - 1986
* Rosalind - 1986
* Belinda - 1986
* Puck - 1986
* Titania - 1787
* Oberon - 1787
* Ariel - 1851
* Miranda - 1948
* Umbriel - ?
* Caliban
* Sycorax
* Prospero
* Setebos
* Stephano
* Perditta - 1986
* Mab - 2005
* Cupid - 2005
Thats a heck of alot of moons!
Oh well anyway, I think it's pretty neat that after having peered into the darkest depths of space, Hubble can still find interesting things to look at here in our own backyard! You'd think the telescope would have demonstrated its merits enough to not have to constantly exist under threat of having its funding cut and it being deorbited...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The Hubble must have a pretty powerful flash to light the outer planets up so well.
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
I know I'll get modded offtopic, but: Q) What's the difference between miazole and urazole? A) The size of the ring.
Perdita is named after a character from Shakespeare, just like all the moons of Uranus.
Nope! Uranus was discovered by William Herschel.
Uranus was an early Greek God of the Sky, Son of Gaia. The word predates the english use of "Your Anus" by a couple thousand years.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
they're still discovering moons around it.
Remember kids, with great power comes great opportunity to abuse that power
The Earth's ring corresponds to Case I in Figure 1, a circular ring with a gap at the location of the planet. However, the Earth's low mass means that it traps relatively few particles; the ring represents a density enhancement of only a few percent. This effect would scarcely appear in an image of the solar system seen from afar.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Quote from the CNN article: "No one thought this region of Uranus was very interesting."
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
"The multitude of rings of space junk launched by humans is stupid. That which cannot be retrieved for space museum purposes should be swept up and removed, before it becomes impossible to get into space at all."
Putting weight into a stable orbit is expensive. Let's take the Athena II launch vehicle as an example. To get 1,896 kilograms to low earth orbit it costs about $25,000,000. Which works out to approximately $13,000/kg. You want to de-orbit the payload, the final motor stage, and any other random detritus necessary to get up to orbit (like, for instance, any leftover propellant in a liquid system)? That takes weight, over 10 kg worth without a doubt. And weight is money.
If your payload is a communications satellite, then that kind of parasitic weight reduces the lifetime of the satellite and the number of transmitters it can carry. The companies that are putting things up in orbit aren't in it to be good citizens. They're in it to make a profit, which isn't necessarily easy in the space industry. Space is a common resource, and the potential negative impact of having more space junk to the companies building, launching, or operating these satellites is tiny compared to the cost of putting that parasitic weight on there. It's the tragedy of the commons (google it.)
Besides, space isn't empty. Anything in orbit is constantly experiencing collisions with the solar wind and random gaseous atoms. As it slows down, it gets closer and closer to the atmosphere, eventually de-orbiting on its own. Remember the US space station?
given that it had been imaged by Voyager 2 but had eluded telescopses since then. I believe "Perdita" means "Lost" in Latin...
If your going to bring up this ancient joke, at least tell it right:
Q) What do Capt. Kirk and toilet paper have in common.
A) They're both out to get the Klingons.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Known by all /.ers for seti@home, it was the SETI Institute that made the discovery in cooperation with NASA.