Strange New Objects Seen In Saturn's Rings

Every 15 Earth years, Saturn has its equinox — the time during which its rotational axis is perpendicular to the rays from the sun, so that the sun is always directly "overhead" of Saturn's equator. This is significant because Saturn's rings orbit over the equator, so during the equinox, light from the sun hits them edge-on. This means that any objects wider than the rings, or orbiting above or below them, cast long shadows and are much easier to see. For the first time, we're able to get detailed images of these objects, thanks to Cassini. A moonlet, perhaps 1,300 feet in diameter, has been discovered in the B-ring, and the Bad Astronomy blog points out another object that seems to be bursting through the F-ring. Quoting: "The upward-angled structure is definitely real, as witnessed by the shadow it's casting on the ring material to the lower left. And what's with the bright patch right where this object seems to have slammed into the rings? Did it shatter millions of icy particles, revealing their shinier interior material, making them brighter? Clearly, something awesome and amazing happened here.

Comments

Savages

[Anonymous Coward]

A moonlet, perhaps 1,300 feet in diameter

Can we have that in perches, chains and furlongs please?

--A. Luddite

Re:Savages

[simcop2387]

78.7877212121212 perches == 19.6969303030 chains == 1.96969303030303 furlongs

Re:Savages

[Informative]

2.731 centigrade

Re:Savages

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you crazy? SI-Units should be used under any circumstance.

"Reproducibility of experimental results is central to the scientific method. A standard system of units facilitates this." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Units_of_measurement @ 2009-08-09]

Some scientists or people with great affinity to science (eg.: me) are driven crazy by people using these obsolete units.

Re:Savages

[PPH]

Well, lets see. The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 1.8x10^12 furlongs per fortnight......

Re:Savages

[Co0Ps]

I think the parent was joking... but I agree completley.

Re:Savages

[techno-vampire]

That comes out to 4 1/3 American football fields.

Re:Savages

[NoobixCube]

I have no problem buying food in Imperial units (not that I have to, since I'm in Australia), since it works out the same in the end. I even say I'm 6 feet tall, despite it being all metric here. I just can't stand Imperial units in a scientific context. Mythbusters get points of starting out metric in their early days, but they lose them again for presumably caving to producers who decided Americans were too stupid to know what a Newton is.

Re:Savages

[hazem]

producers who decided Americans were too stupid to know what a Newton is.

Of course we know what a Newton is... you just have to decide if you're going to go with one of the newer fruit varieties or to stick with the classic Fig.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_Newton)

Re:Savages

[nametaken]

You lost me.

Re:Savages

[Migity]

Yeah, but how many Library of Congresses would that be?

Re:Savages

[Loopy1492]

Oh we KNOW, we just don't give a shit. Of course, as the man said, if it is full of fruity goodness.

Re:Savages

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could browse at some level that would let me skip past all of the same old jokes that show up in every story that mentions a unit of measurement.

Re:Savages

[Anonym1ty]

What fraction of a Megagrade is that?

That's no moon

[Linknoid]

It's a budong.

Re:That's no moon

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Or maybe a monolith...

Re:That's no moon

[The Grim Reefer2]

Or maybe a monolith...

Nice try, wrong planet. Besides, "1300 feet in diameter" isn't exactly how you'd measure rectangular parallelepiped.

Re:That's no moon

[The_mad_linguist]

In the original novel, the monolith was on a moon of Saturn.

Re:That's no moon

[nedlohs]

Saturn is the right planet, stupid movie be damned.

And yes diameter is exactly how you would measure it until you got a high enough resolution image to atually see the shape.

Re:That's no moon

[FlyingSquidStudios]

I actually love the movie. It just wouldn't have worked for my joke and I've read the book (which I also enjoyed, but I like the movie more). However, I'm a bit biased. One of my parents wrote a book about the film and it's the first movie I ever remember watching- projected across the living room wall with a 16mm projector with a Cinemascope lens for a group of graduate students. I was around two years old. I've seen it probably hundreds of times since.

Re:That's no moon

[synthparadox]

Silly people. Its obviously the Magic School Bus!

Re:That's no moon

[Sumbius]

But weren't budongs supposed to be extinct?

Re:That's no moon

[The Grim Reefer2]

In the original novel, the monolith was on a moon of Saturn.

Too bad the movie came first.

Re:That's no moon

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You surely meant to write "Stan shot first!"

Re:That's no moon

[Deuxsonic]

It was changed to Jupiter for the movie because Stanley Kubrick couldn't find a good image of Saturn (this was 1968, so a lot of the great images we have today didn't exist.) The book retains the original planet of Saturn, yet strangely it gets changed to Jupiter in the later books (I guess to be canon with the movie?)

Re:That's no moon

[tsa]

Indeed, for a start you would use SI units.

Re:That's no moon

[whopub]

Saturn is the right planet, stupid movie be damned.

Dude, take it back! It's only the best non-porn movie ever!

Re:That's no moon

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Technically, the book came first in that it was completed before the movie was released, but they were written together, so neither really came first.

Re:That's no moon

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Douglas Trumbull, the man who created the effects for 2001, told Kubrick that Saturn was too hard to depict realistically. As for why the setting was different in the other novels, in an author's note in 2061, Clarke claimed that each novel took place in a different parallel universe. My personal reason is that Clarke's original novels are all terrific, but his sequels are all terrible. Especially those god-awful Rama books he co-wrote with Gentry Lee. And yet, I couldn't stop reading them. I hate myself.

Re:That's no moon

[whopub]

The book retains the original planet of Saturn, yet strangely it gets changed to Jupiter in the later books (I guess to be canon with the movie?

They should either change the whole thing (in all books, including 2001) to Jupiter, or stick with Saturn in all books (again, including 2001) since we know the reason why Kubrick couldn't stick to the original plan.

It's something that can easily be changed in a book in any new edition, but in the movie... well, not so much. Not to mention Kubrick would rise from the dead and destroy all manking if someone even thought about changing something in one of his movies. Covers and posters included!

Anyway, too bad slashdot wasn't around in the 60's so we could fix this. Now it's kind of too late.

Re:That's no moon

[MichaelSmith]

In the original novel, the monolith was on a moon of Saturn.

Too bad the movie came first.

The movie was originally shot to finish at Saturn but Kubrick changed his mind. The Saturn footage was recycled for Silent Running.

Re:That's no moon

[MichaelSmith]

Douglas Trumbull, the man who created the effects for 2001, told Kubrick that Saturn was too hard to depict realistically

And then ripped the footage off for his own movie!

Re:That's no moon

[MichaelSmith]

I was born in 1965 and I saw 2001 as a new release. The scene where Bowman disassembles HAL gave me nightmares for years afterwards.

Re:That's no moon

[Scarletdown]

Dude, take it back! It's only the best non-porn movie ever!

Well, it would be if it was possible to watch it without falling asleep within less than an hour into the film.

Re:That's no moon

[BollocksToThis]

The movie was originally shot to finish at Saturn but Kubrick changed his mind.

I bet it was the commute that did him in.

Re:That's no moon

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Jupiter also looks better in the sense that it is a human ovum-shaped object which is encountering a sperm-shaped space craft. The symbolism of new life, new evolution is much clearer with Jupiter than Saturn.

Re:That's no moon

[DoninIN]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jvqPvDUEW8 It's a spaceship. It's here to bring our machines to life and wipe us out. No one else read Trucks?/Saw Maximum Overdrive?

Re:That's no moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Douglas Trumbull, the man who created the effects for 2001, told Kubrick that Saturn was too hard to depict realistically

And then ripped the footage off for his own movie!

According to IMDB:

Originally the Discovery was to have traveled to Saturn, but the special effects crew was unable to make convincing-looking rings around the planet. Effects artist Douglas Trumbull eventually perfected a technique for making the rings after production was completed, and used Saturn's rings to great effect in his directorial debut, Silent Running (1972).

Re:That's no moon

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't remember Clarke using the term 'Parallel' when refering to the books all taking place in different Universes. I thought his reasoning was that science had moved on between each book being written so the science was slightly different and updated.

I only remember him saying that they took place in 'different universes' due to the differences in science, which is a lot different to being set in different parallel universes.

Of course, I'm too lazy to go look for my copy of 2061 to see if the word 'Parallel' is in there, but that's my recollection.

Re:That's no moon

[inode_buddha]

Seconded, but also in my case, it was the scene where Frank Poole's body is spinning off into space. The hibernauculum didn't help much either for the mental imagery.

Re:That's no moon

[Scarletdown]

I would mod your post funny, had I not already posted in this discussion. After all, surely no one of any significant intelligence would seriously have a big meltdown over some random person in a forum saying anything negative about an old sci-fi flick.

And for the record, Clarke was my favorite of the "classic" sci-fi authors. I did read 2001 way back when I was perhaps 13 or 14 (I'm 41 now and closing in on the ultimate answer), and I really enjoyed the book back then. The movie was simply lacking and not up to my expectations. The SFX and musical score were great of course, but the implementation of the story just shows that some things just don't translate well from book to screen.

Guess I better not mention that I did enjoy 2010 when I first saw it a year or two later on the big screen. It was a double feature with Dune, and fortunately, it was the first feature (Dune was another big disappointment, and I fell asleep early on there).

Re:That's no moon

[whopub]

My first impressions after watching both movies and reading both books, IIRC, since it was many years ago (I'm 34), were:

2001: great book, masterpiece of a movie.
2010: maybe even a better book than 2001, but a regular movie.

I still enjoyed the whole thing, of course.

I was able to see a restored version of 2001 in a proper movie screen in the end of the 90's. That's an experience I won't forget.

I do find it weird that people who love the book consider the movie boring though... I mean, it goes by faster than the book, of course, and it's basically the same thing, just masterfully illustrated. It's like watching a slide show. I actually have a book about the movie, with thousands of pictures from the actual frames. Interesting stuff.

F-Ring?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there an O-Ring?

Careful there buddy, you're going to blow out your O-Ring!

Too bad Uranus doesn't have rings- then it could show that turd who's boss!

Re:F-Ring?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it.. uh... does.

Re:F-Ring?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn. My bad joke could have been even better! :)

Thanks, that's what I get for a lack of cosmological knowledge. The extent of my knowledge is that I'm a leo.

Re:F-Ring?

[jeepien]

Rings were discovered around Uranus some years ago. Much to the surprise and delight of every 7th-grade astronomy student.

Re:F-Ring?

[SL Baur]

The Fithp are coming! The Fithp are coming! Run for the hills!

Re:F-Ring?

[MichaelSmith]

The Fithp are coming! The Fithp are coming! Run for the hills!

We should just return to the trees. The Traveller Fithp will never think to look for us there.

That book would make a great movie BTW.

Re:F-Ring?

[sjwt]

better make sure that is the high hills.

Dudes

[Kingrames]

If you don't know what caused it by now, go watch the new Star Trek movie already. It's actually good.

stargate

[wizardforce]

That's just a Goa'uld mothership approaching Earth. No need for alarm at all.

Obligatory Footfall

[snowwrestler]

Just let me know if they spot a ring that looks like it's been braided.

Re:Obligatory Footfall

[John Hasler]

Here you go.

Re:Obligatory Footfall

[Fluffeh]

Just let me know if they spot a ring that looks like it's been braided.

Here you go.

That's part of why I love slashdot. For so many people that ask for something seemingly impossible, there seems to be someone who either has the answer or knows someone that does.

Bless you uber-nerds!

radial distance?

[N7DR]

I haven't been able to find a reference that states the precise radial location of this object. Does anyone here have that information?

The Voyager 2 photopolarimeter data from 1981 suggested the presence of a small object in Saturn's B ring at a radial distance of around 109,000 km.

It would be interesting to know whether this is confirmation of that object, 28 years later.

(I have a vested interest: I was the principal author on the Voyager paper: Icarus 54, 267 (1983).)

Re:radial distance?

[spacemandave]

According to Ciclops it's 480 km inward of the outer edge of the B ring, which puts it at a radial distance of 117,100 km

Re:radial distance?

[MartinSchou]

Obviously I haven't read that paper, nor any related papers on the subject ...

But wouldn't you expect to see pieces of the rings coalesces into larger objects (I'm guessing under the same forces that make planets) and then be destroyed by gravity continually?

Re:radial distance?

[N7DR]

According to Ciclops it's 480 km inward of the outer edge of the B ring, which puts it at a radial distance of 117,100 km

Thanks very much; that's a much better source of information than TFA.

Re:radial distance?

[Eternauta3k]

IANAA, but I'd expect the bits of debris to settle into an equilibrium between clumping and breaking up: rings. What you describe suggests some form of hysteresis.

Re:radial distance?

[xilmaril]

Obviously I haven't read that paper, nor any related papers on the subject ...

But wouldn't you expect to see pieces of the rings coalesces into larger objects (I'm guessing under the same forces that make planets) and then be destroyed by gravity continually?

No, while I haven't read the papers either, I can confirm that gravity will not be the force pulling objects apart, at least not directly, as it is an attractive force. Also, the forces that make planets are generally agreed to be massively more powerful than anything going on in the rings of saturn, although if they are also just gravity is beyond me.

By simple logic, the rings will settle into something resembling an equilibrium, as they haven't all turned to dust or clumped into one piece over the many eons they've had to float around. Maybe asteroids are a significant force in breaking up the debris?

Re:radial distance?

[Anonymous Coward]

No... You weren't.

I was.

Ridiculous.

Re:radial distance?

[j-stroy]

The rings are non-concentric at that point. Pushing the brightness levels to expand bright artifacts shows interesting "twisting" (look on each side lower on left, higher on right) The close-up views miss some details that a "big picture" shows, reductionism, feh.

We assume an orientation of the anomaly parallel to Saturn's axis, but from the brightness of the reflected light on the "dark side" of it suggests an angle maybe closer to that of the ring plane... remember where the sun is. Although, it could be illumination of backscatter from Saturn, or by internal reflections between the particles.

Ring particles could be caused to move by electrostatics, not just gravity or collision, so I'm thinking a long plasma trail behind a comet passing thru, or a slower moving (orbital?) charged object causing a ruction. Heck, why not a moving cloud of magnetic particles colliding with the ring bits, which are then drawn along Saturns magnetic field.

Re:radial distance?

[CheshireCatCO]

Actually, no. Gravity WILL, in effect, pull objects apart thanks to tides. This is what keeps the rings from accreting into a single body, more or less. So gravity, while most simply an attractive force, *can* actual cause repulsion. (Another fine example is the F ring itself, which is shepherded by two moons. The moons push the ring back when it tries to spread toward the moons.)

This is what keeps the rings from accreting, more or less. And collisions are so slow that grinding isn't a *huge* factor, although some amount of re-collection of dust onto macroscopic particles probably helps that significantly.

Re:radial distance?

[CheshireCatCO]

Nope, grandparent was basically right. You form temporary gravitational aggregates and then let tides destroy them on orbital timescales. It's seen in simulations all the time and the various data show strong indications that such structures must exist. (See, for example, the A Ring Azimuthal Brightness Asymmetry.)

Re:radial distance?

[SL Baur]

No, while I haven't read the papers either, I can confirm that gravity will not be the force pulling objects apart, at least not directly, as it is an attractive force.

Maybe you should do some reading. Start with googling "roche limit". Tidal forces ripping an object apart are how the rings got formed in the first place.

Re:radial distance?

[CheshireCatCO]

That's because it's the original source.

Re:radial distance?

[Anonymous Coward]

I make it to be the shape of a barrel (or beer can if you like) ...
A few Differential Gaussians + compositing to get it so... let me know if this looks right -- dont know much about Sarturn.

http://i31.tinypic.com/2l3no5.png

Forecast: 6 more weeks of wierd science

[Anonymous Coward]

Cassini sees its own shadow.

Its the Fithp!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Thuktun Flishithy has arrived. We have about 20 years until the attack. Better start building Michael right now

PS: Don't get it? Read some Larry Niven.

Re:Its the Fithp!

[Anonymous Coward]

People would've noticed if you weren't posting AC.
Enjoy your ignominy.

Re:Its the Fithp!

[jegla932]

++

One of my favorite sci-fi books!

Skylark?

[dan_the_heretic]

No big deal, just Dick Seaton blowing off some steam.

Re:Skylark?

[mustafap]

I doubt many people under the age of 40 would get that :o)

Over here in the UK, I can't find a bookshop or library that holds any of E.E. Doc Smith's work. As I kid I lapped his work up. I wonder why it is so out of fashion now?

Re:Skylark?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try typing "Doc Smith" into Amazon UK, and you'll find no shortage of results.

I last read "Doc" Smith around 30(!) years ago, and I dimly remember it making me distinctly queasy. Something to do with the "good" guys wearing immaculate, well-pressed grey uniforms and nice shiny boots, ruthlessly despatching puny unenhanced humans with their Awesome Mental Powers. The overtones of a fascist ubermensch were too much for me to take at a young and impressionable age.

Edit: CAPTCHA: "killings" :-p

Re:Skylark?

[mustafap]

I know what you mean. That's probably why they are not P.C. any more.

Made me feel a little uncomfortable too ( being a nerdy liberal ) but they were great ripping yarns :o)

I've no need for amazon - I have most of them in my bookcase!

Oh dear

[Joe Jay Bee]

Could this be one of the few threads where the Goatse guy is on-topic? After all, numerous strange objects have been seen in his ring.

Re:Oh dear

[Huntr]

Strange New Objects Seen in Uranus

Re:Oh dear

[martin-boundary]

Sort of, but it is kind of like the difference between micro-economics and macro-economics...

Re:Oh dear

[geoffball]

Strange New Objects Seen in Uranus

Saturn's strap on stuck in one of its rings. News at 11.

Space dingleberries

[GodfatherofSoul]

Saturn has always been the least hygienic of the gas giants.

TMA-3??

[spoonist]

Let me guess, it's about two kilometers long...

Re:TMA-3??

[S-100]

Built in the exact proportions of 1, 4, 9 - the square of the first three integers. And of course this doesn't stop after just three dimensions...

duh

[Stinking Pig]

It's obviously the Thuktun Flishithy

Monolith

[philipmather]

Well I was going to make the following joke...

Is this "moonlet" curiously rectangular in shape with dimensions in the ratio of 1:4:9 per chance? ...but the picture in TFA does in fact bear an uncanny resemblance to a monolith reflecting light off it's thin side and I don't want labelled as a complete mad-hatter so I'll just pitch one up for the real fruit-loops to bat out of the park instead...

UFO

[pizzach]

Why has no-one tagged this "ufo"? Is in Unidentified Flying Object? It would make me tingly on the inside with space dust if someone does.

Re:UFO

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Unidentified FALLING Object.

Shit!

[db32]

Haven't any of you read Footfall?! I for one welcome our new elephant overlords!

PAUL IS SATURN

[Anonymous Coward]

PAUL IS SATURN

Re:PAUL IS SATURN

[Tablizer]

PAUL IS SATURN

Hey, be nice. We all gain a little around the middle as we age.
     

Gathering of the nerds...

[X3J11]

Farscape, 2001, SG-1 and Star Trek all in one article's first few comments. I doubt it's a record for /., but damn. Pity no one could work a Doctor Who reference in there somewhere.

Yeah I'm off-topic, so sue... erm, mod me.

Re:Gathering of the nerds...

[pohl]

Ok, if you insist...

"Gosh, I wonder if these strange new objects are dimensionally transcendental, like a Tardis!"

Happy now? ;-)

Re:Gathering of the nerds...

[Hatta]

I'm surprised this one hasn't been tagged vogonconstructorfleet yet.

Is that...?

[Landshark17]

Jimmy Hoffa?!?

"clearly something awesome..."

[Gothmolly]

Please. This happens all the time, but now someone saw it. Who gives a crap? And don't decide what everyone thinks is 'clear' or 'awesome', thanks very much.

Re:"clearly something awesome..."

[Chris Burke]

"all the time" isn't mutually exclusive with "awesome". Meteor impacts are happening in the universe all the time, but are awesome.

But you're right, it was unfair of the author to assume everyone would think this was awesome, not accounting for the large populations of prats out there.

Russell's Teapot

[thespeech]

It's bleeding Russell's Teapot. Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

OMG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its' Heart of Gold

Zaphod

Death Star?

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's no moon. That's a space station."

Everybody knowsâ¦

[Anonymous Coward]

That the ultimate destination for all luggage lost by the airlines is the rings of Saturn. It's just one of those bags that weighed more than 50 lbs. on earth.

i know the feeling

[AP31R0N]

i had some bean and cheese burritos Saturday night and blew out my O ring.

Re:I like getting ripped off by my insurance co

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I thought I was a fucking retard who listens to left wing hypocrites. I would imagine that I'm more retarded than you, though, since I base my opinions on emotions instead of logic.

Re:I like getting ripped off by my insurance co

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude...pass it this way. I haven't had a hit yet.

Clone?

[MikeDirnt69]

I bet it was Jango Fett.