Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
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aka
Mr. Cassini Drops Mr. Huygens at Titan, then Tours the Rings and Moons http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm - NASA's Official Home Page of the Mission First Encounter: with Moon Phoebe - Jun 11 2004 Expected Saturn Orbit Insertion - July 1 2004 (43 days and counting) Already sending back some impressive new pictures and discovering more details about the atmospheric haze around Titan Once the inline images here get Safari-friendlier, I'll see if I can add the telemetry as I did in the Mars thread at .com No tinfoilhats, please, or Mr. Saturn might go Goya on ya. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: oaktown
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Breathtaking.
God I hope we don't lose contact with Huygens before it can give us some solid telemetry form Titan. Cause, as we all know, Titan's seas are teeming with life... That which doesn't kill you weakens you slightly and makes you less able to cope until you're completely incapacitated |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
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These telemetry images should update once a day... 19,758 kph !!!
also worth checking out is the spiffy Flash Video about who, what, how, and why we're exploring Last edited by curiousuburb : 2004-05-19 at 01:26. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: oaktown
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Fantastic.
My dad worked the Mercury, Gemini and early Apollo missions (he was a Boeing engineer) and it's great to see NASA out there, getting the goods. I can't see how anybody could fail to be thrilled by these kinds of images and data. I just wish they had the budget to pepper the solar system with these probes. That which doesn't kill you weakens you slightly and makes you less able to cope until you're completely incapacitated |
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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In the great tradition of the Official Mars Exploration Thread...awesome! That's one mother of a mover.
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9" monochrome
Join Date: May 2004
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man - I forgot how impressive all this stuff is. I gotta get out more.
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
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Excellent thread idea. I saw a special on this the other night and had the same thought but forgot to post one. Cassini is a really exciting mission.
Another cool NASA project that's about to come online: SOFIA Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy. It's an *airborne* telescope with an eight foot mirror that is suspended in some kind of oil-based solution. Nice... Then there's the LBT or Large Bincoluar Telescope project which will enable us to actually see many newly discovered planets that are currently too close to their companion stars to be viewed directly. ...into the light of a dark black night. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
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That's no moon... it's a space station.
Crisper pictures of this satellite (this one from Voyager1) will impress, but if we discover an equatorial trench system, George Lucas will get some calls. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
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Pandora, Prometheus and Epimetheus Near F Ring
Two of Saturn's moon's Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) and Pandora (84 kilometers, or 52 miles across), are seen here shepherding the planet's narrow F-ring. Prometheus overtakes Pandora in orbit around Saturn about every 25 days. Slightly above the pair and to the right is another moon, Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across). The image was taken with the narrow angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft on May 1, 2004, at a distance of 31.4 million kilometers (19.5 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 187 kilometers (116 miles) per pixel. The image has been magnified and greatly contrast-enhanced to aid visibility. from here there are some animations and videos online, in addition to the awesome Flash I linked above, Also worth linking, perhaps Ciclops... the Cassini Imager Home Page. Treklike Blog and all. Anybody with educational interest, kids, or origamiphilia will want to check the Products page. down at the bottom are two downloadable models in PDF form. 1/40 scale or 1/37 scale (with detachable Huygens probe!) each download is under 200k zipped *loads printer* |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
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In "Concert for another world" news,
After an unsuccessful attempt by the British Band Blur to perform in an alien atmosphere when the Beagle probe was lost en route to the Martian surface, a young Frenchman awaits the performance of four of his songs on the surface of Titan courtesy of the Huygens probe. http://music2titan.com/ Meanwhile... Cassini's latest colour shot original here with higher res image links Quote:
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
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Stunning... I will definitely being keeping any eye on this thread as the countdown nears.
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To paraphrase a sarcastic coworker, Wasn't this the spacecraft with the plutonium battery that could destroy all mankind if the launch failed?
Sevem years later, mankind still intact, even the chicken littles should be impressed by the results. Screed |
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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Nothing so stupid as people who think that radiation can "pollute" space, when every star in existence is spewing high levels of radiation all over the place. I can understand the fear of losing a nuclear propelled vehicle at launch, because earth's ecosystem - unlike the vacuum of space - can be damaged by such things... but to persist in the protests long after it's left earth's grasp is just... Gomer-like.
...into the light of a dark black night. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
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First encounter with Phoebe (perhaps captured Kuiper Belt Object or asteroid)
Click for Caption and Video Phoebe Looms in View - June 11, 2004 Phoebe, Saturn's largest outer moon, is the first target of exploration for the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft. A short video clip shows images taken by the spacecraft as it approached Phoebe. |
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Hates the Infotainment
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Definitely irregular-shaped object... not rounded like the other moons in the solar system. Captured asteroid sounds about right, given its size and mass.
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9" monochrome
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That image of Saturn (a few posts up) is beautiful... but almost "too neat".
I prefer the realism of the moon, Phoebe - and yes, it does look like it took a pounding from something at some stage! Still, I'll keeping popping by here once in a while - the images are beautiful. Thanks for starting it up curiousuburb! |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
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Phoebe Rotation Movie
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9" monochrome
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These images are incredible!
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Oh and btw: man, something BIG or some big things have definitely collided with poor old "Phoebes". |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
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Last edited by curiousuburb : 2004-06-14 at 21:30. |
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Hates the Infotainment
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:wow:
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Antimatter Man
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Hates the Infotainment
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9" monochrome
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So Phoebe could have been flying by from another solar system and Saturn pulled her into its orbit? What does this mean for our moon? How did we get that?
(... to be folowed up, of course, by: "Who are we?" & "Why are we here?") |
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
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Based on the composition of Moon rocks and other factors, one popular astronomical theory is that the Moon is a conglomeration of materials that resulted from a long-ago collision between the earth and a very large asteroid / comet / planetesimal body.
The way the rocks were formed and the amount of dust on the surface suggest the Moon was at one time mostly molten (which would could result from molten rock and ejecta being shot into space from a massive collision early in our planet's history). In fact the carbon dating indicates the Moon is [basically the same age as the similar rocks dated on earth]. ...into the light of a dark black night. |
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The Elderâ„¢
Join Date: May 2004
Location: The Rostra
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
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Not sure how you're defining "organic", but much of the moon is convered with basalt rock like the kind found on earth, and evidently it can be dated. Good question though; I'm open to any different interpretations....
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...into the light of a dark black night. |
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9" monochrome
Join Date: May 2004
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Thanks Moogs - I never knew that was how our moon started! Freaky!
Were you an astronomy kid at school - where did you pick up this knowledge? I'm really just learning all this stuff from checking out this thread. Oh well, better late than never! (I guess space and astronomy were never major points of fascination for me as a kid - my loss evidently. I'm really intrigued by the grandeur and enormity of this exploration and research into our solar system!) |
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
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I was definitely an astronomy kid from the time I was in middle school, through high school. I've always been interested in this kind of thing. Probably I would have majored in Astronomy or Astro-physics if I was more mathematically inclined. Once you reach college, astronomy goes from neat pictures and their stories, to heavy-duty equations and number-crunching. Then if you're a God at that, you could try your hand at getting an advanced degree in some particular branch like Cosmology, but I imagine most people wash out of those programs.
All these guys we see on the Science channel (Tuesday nights are a very good source of Astronomy info) are pretty much God's in their chosen field I think. Astronomy and Cosmology are two of those odd profressions where, if you're not among the very best minds in the world, you don't get a job and end up teaching Atronomy 101 at the local university or Physics at the local high school. Very difficult profession to break into, probably because there's not a lot of funding to go around, so what does go around lands with the very cream of the crop, so to speak. Some good books for you: The Invisible Universe - by David Malin (Most a photo book, but it's a really well-crafted collection of large format photos... you will be awe-struck). Hubble Vision - by Peterson & Grant Hubble Revisited - by Fischer & Duerbeck Orbit - National Geographic (Views of earth from space, with some good science tidbits for each). The Illustrated Edition of A Brief History of Time - by Stephen Hawking (Good visual primer for the basic tenets of cosmology and astro-physics) Pale Blue Dot - by Carl Sagan (Good primer on space exploration and other areas) ...and finally, a good link to get you to the real meaty stuff, if you're so inclined. http://publishing.cambridge.org/stm/astronomy/ ...into the light of a dark black night. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
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www.Scaled.com 's Pioneering Private Spaceflight is scheduled for this coming Monday. Pilot choice still 'up in the air'. And... it sounds like we might get bonus Bootid meteor showers Tuesday night and next weekend. *prepares for kink in neck from looking up* |
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The Elderâ„¢
Join Date: May 2004
Location: The Rostra
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Regardless, if NASA thinks they have a good idea how old the rock is, I trust them. Shit, they put a man on the fucking moon, I bow to their knowledge of science. |
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