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Enceladus Spreads Ghostly Ice Tendrils Around Saturn
astroengine writes A ghostly apparition has long been known to follow Saturn moon Enceladus in its orbit around the gas giant. But until now, scientists have had a hard time tracking its source. Using images from NASA's Cassini mission, the source of these tendrils have been tracked down and they originate from the icy moon's famous geysers. But even better than that, scientists have been able to track the tendril shapes down to the specific geysers that produce them. "We've been able to show that each unique tendril structure can be reproduced by particular sets of geysers on the moon's surface," said Colin Mitchell, a Cassini imaging team associate at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., and lead author of a paper published int he Astrophysical Journal. The study of these features are helping scientists understand how much ice is being transported into Saturn's E ring from Enceladus as well as helping us understand the evolution of the moon's sub-surface ocean.
That's just awesome ... in the literal meaning of the word. Space has such cool stuff in it.
"Begging your pardon, Sir, but it's a big-ass sky!"
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In case anyone cares, Enceladus was one of the children of Uranus and Gaia, one of a race of giants. Depending on which version you prefer, he was either killed by Athena or by Silenus, the drunken butt-buddy of Dionysus and buried on the isle of Sicily. I prefer the Athena story, because Athena was hot.
Esoteric circles believe that the giants that appear in almost every single culture's mythology were actually the first draft of the Annunaki, who bred them here on Earth as miners after they came here from Nubaru (or "Planet X"), until one of the Shining Ones decided to breed with a primate female, creating homo sapiens. And then all hell broke loose.
I'm pretty sure it's all BS, but I like a good story, and really, who knows? Newspapers from the 1800s and early 1900s were full of stories of giant skeletons being found in burial mounds before the US government, acting completely unlike themselves, decided to make it a federal crime to dig at the megalithic burial mounds, citing "respect for Native American culture" (which, considering history, really doesn't sound like the US government. Newspaper reports from that time about these skeletons and mummies being found definitely exist, but like I said, it's probably all BS. It still makes for a good tale, though.
Entheogenic madman Graham Hancock presents the saga here, in case you want a spooky bedtime story. http://www.grahamhancock.com/f...
You are welcome on my lawn.
If low-gravity icy moons are outgassing into orbit, they must be sharing chemistry, perhaps including the precursors of life. Since Saturn's moons have widely differing widely differing geology and chemistry, that's a lot of mixing going on into a lot of potential niches.
Now consider that the same thing is probably happening at Jupiter.