Saturn Unveiled!

[Kal]

I'm kinda surprised we don't have a higher number of space-related posts around here...

Anyway, July 1st will see Cassini begin settling into orbit of Saturn for a 4 year mission that includes a probe landing to explore Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

Link to the article on Space.com for more details.

I am personally excited to hear about this...the Probe landing on Titan is scheduled for January 2005.

Any thoughts from the rest of us?
-Kal

[Zircon]

I'm kinda surprised we don't have a higher number of space-related posts around here...

Any thoughts from the rest of us?

That's because except for a few it doesn't interest many...

Personally i'm thrilled about all the advances made in the last couple of years.

Titan is one of the few places it is believed that "life" can exist. A good deal of scientists say however that the moon has been misjudged and is in reality a frosen clump of acid.
By landing there i guess we can find out who is right (even though the probe wont survive long, 30 min max as it says)

Saturn looks "unreal" up close almost like a 3d render but it has a logical explanation :op2:

[Ezekel]

i'm just lazy is all

but i'm interested in space stuff  

[CK9]

space is one of the most facinating subjects, but because we know so little about it, it is hard to talk about.

[Betaray]

on my favorates list I have the NASA page for cassini, and it has a count down timer till it goes into orbit around saturn

ive read about the workings of both probes, and I think it is kinda stupid to power the lander with batteries, why not have it have RTG's like viking did, or like cassini does?  instead of having 30 min of power (about 90% of that will be used up on the decent spiral twords titan leaving only a few minutes of workable time) it would have 30 days power or more, much more time to gather data

but the lander was built by the europeon space agency, and you know how they feel about nukes in space (even though its not a nuke, just a RTG) I guess they wanted to cut science return in favor of feeling better

[Zircon]

The 30 minute operating time is when the craft has landed, the descent will take over two hours through the thick, murky and possibly highly acidic atmosphere...

And they have their reasons, the probe was made to measure the composition and snapping pictures along the descent. It was later equipped with a small camera to take land pictures just as a fun "gimmick".

So equipping it with a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) might have been a waste as it was already filled with electronics to measure the composition and had no further room for land based experiments.

While the European space agency may have something against rtg's they are not stupid and will use it when necessary... (i hope :unsure: )

[Betaray]

I hope they go for full space fission reactors, they would be able to carry more payload (sensors) send back higher rez data at a faster rate, get there quicker, adn be able to use active sensors (like high power ground penatrating radar)

or even better, my cold fusion design

[Zircon]

Newsflash: One of jupiters moons has its secrets revealed by Cassini.
I'll let you read yourself  

Saturn's intriguing moon Phoebe, inspected at close range by the Cassini spacecraft on June 11, has proved to be unlike any object examined closely before.

After initial analysis of the data collected during the fl-by, researchers have concluded it is almost certainly a captured object from the Kuiper Belt, out beyond Pluto.

Such objects are thought to be primordial remnants from the formation of the Solar System - frozen time capsules that may preserve detailed information about the materials from which the planets were made 4.6 billion years ago.

Phoebe is about 214 kilometres in diameter and orbits Saturn in the opposite direction from most of its 31 moons. It turns out to be made of a comet-like mixture of water ice, rock, hydrated minerals and carbon-rich material, according to Peter Thomas of Cornell University, a member of the Cassini imaging team.

And the whole surface is more complex and "chewed up" by impacts than had been expected, he told a briefing at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California, on Wednesday.

And a precise determination of Phoebe's density shows that it must be a mix of rock and ice. The density of 1.6 grams per cubic centimetre is too low to be rock, but too high for pure ice.

The new compositional information shows "it may have a lot in common with things like Pluto and the Kuiper Belt Objects," Johnson said. If so, it would be the first such object studied in detail and could provide important clues to the nature of the whole outer Solar System.

Perhaps most surprising for such a small object is evidence from some of the crater walls that there seem to be different layers of material at the surface.

Such layering is completely expected, said Torrence Johnson of JPL, a member of the imaging team.

[Kal]

Perhaps most surprising for such a small object is evidence from some of the crater walls that there seem to be different layers of material at the surface.

Such layering is completely expected, said Torrence Johnson of JPL, a member of the imaging team.

Wait, so if it's expected, why is is it surprising?  Because it's so small?  It's almost a contradiction...

[Zircon]

I noticed, either it's a spelling error on their side or it could be different opinions from different people... :unsure:

Ordinary person: This rock is blue, very unexpected...
Geologist: It is not unexpected at all, i see blue stones all day long... :yawn:  

[Betaray]

spelling error, and planet error by z lol

Newsflash: One of jupiters moons has its secrets revealed by Cassini.

[Zircon]

*Stares at planet error* oh god, i'm such a dimwit