Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Is Mimas Hiding Pac-Man?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the nature-is-a-strange-thing dept.

cremeglace writes "Shaped into the likes of the Death Star of Star Wars fame by the giant crater Herschel, 396-kilometer-diameter Mimas was expected to have its warmest surface temperatures on the equator, where it was early afternoon. Instead, it was warmest in the morning (all of 92 K), giving rise in the science team's temperature-calibrated color scheme to a very large Pac-Man."

4 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Cost per Bit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    They say the Cassini Program costs less -per bit of data sent- than an SMS.
    If you've got some hard math on that, please post it.

    1. Re:Cost per Bit by lordholm · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No, there have however been discussion on the cost of the downlink from the Hubble space telescope: http://www2.le.ac.uk/ebulletin/news/press-releases/2000-2009/2008/05/nparticle.2008-05-12.4476906328

      In essence, a sending data via text will give you bills for around GBP 350 per MB. The funny thing with this is of-course that sending texts is basically for the operator free of charge as it is only using excess capacity of the mobile networks, that is, text messages have no guaranteed delivery and will simply be dropped in case a link is congested. The only cost that texts infer are the operational costs with maintaining the servers that manages the texts, but you cannot expect that that will be a very high cost.

      --
      "Civis Europaeus sum!"
  2. Surface composition? by Mindcontrolled · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Would be interesting if other spectral bands show the same effect. My first thought would be that it is a difference in surface composition that causes the different heat retention mentioned in TFA. It still is an extremely weird shape for that, with that straight and rather sharp lines. Any ideas what could cause such a triangular boundary? Only thing that comes to my mind right now is that it looks like a bow wave, or a shock wave boundary.

    --
    Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
    1. Re:Surface composition? by smoothnorman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here's a badly thought out notion: sharp demarcations on moon-sized and larger bodies are generally associated with "lighting" from a side at an angle from the observer (zB: a half moon). so what we're looking at here is two sources of illumination against Mimas; or (even crazier?) Mimas is illuminated by a single source (i dunno... the sun?) and has two main stable orbital orientations. Pretty unlikely oddball theory, i know, but i'm still on my first coffee.