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[ourumov]

I am sure there is very primitive life somewhere in the Solar System...I doubt it's Titan since the low temperatures on the surface seem to say the opposite...but perhaps other satelites...

 

[Stele]

... and the core's made of Hydrogen at that.

Just noting that it's solidifed/metallic hydrogen. Such conditions do not exist on our planet to naturally produce such a thing.

 

[Goreomedy]

The mission briefing has begun.

 

[OmniGamer]

5$ says we wont find life on Europa

who wants to do a GA betting pool?

I don't think we will either...that's my mindset so as not to set myself up for disappointment. But years ago we would have never expected life in the sunless realm deep in the ocean near those superheated vents.

 

[ourumov]

It's amazing what we have been reaching lately (I speak in terms of mankind not countries)...IMO the most remarkable thing lately has been Burt Rutan's achievement with Space Ship one.

 

[Stele]

It's amazing how such a small percentage of the population can achieve so much. The rest of us are just guests along for the ride.

 

[Naked Snake]

I'm downloading some full resolution TIFF images of Jupiter, they look unreal, like a painting, so purrty.

 

[ourumov]

Probably when we are 90 years old there will be organizated travels to space...Hotels in the moon and Perhaps in Mars too...
The space will be polluted and exploded just as the earth has been.

 

[Culex]

If any celestial body has life on it, Europa is that body.

 

[aoi tsuki]

While i agree that Jupiter may be more interesting on a scientific level, i've always had a thing for Saturn and it's rings. It's just amazes me how the rings, composed of space "debris" orbit the planet so uniformly. In this shot you can see some of the larger objects that form the rings. i don't know the size, but they're MUCH larger than they appear (~quarter mile in width).

i can't wait until we actually land and get shots of the surface. It's a pity CH won't be able to be retrieved, but on the other hand it's cool to think that, maybe a couple hundred years from now astronauts will be retrieving something from our era.

Edit: Forgot to add that other planets (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto IIRC) have rings as well, just not as prominent as Saturn.

 

[clipunderground]

wow...these are some amazing images!!!

 

[Stele]

The space will be polluted and exploded just as the earth has been.

The space will be exploded... Pollution in space isn't necessary since the garbage can just be ejected along a trajectory toward the Sun that isn't going to effected by planetary orbits.

 

[olimario]

I don't even know if we'll have sent a man to Mars in 70 years, much less colonized the moon. I suspect commercial space flight will be in full swing, though.

 

[aoi tsuki]

The space will be exploded... Pollution in space isn't necessary since the garbage can just be ejected along a trajectory toward the Sun that isn't going to effected by planetary orbits.

Dammit, you just killed the validity of Planet ES.

 

[heavy liquid]

While i agree that Jupiter may be more interesting on a scientific level, i've always had a thing for Saturn and it's rings. It's just amazes me how the rings, composed of space "debris" orbit the planet so uniformly. In this shot you can see some of the larger objects that form the rings. i don't know the size, but they're MUCH larger than they appear (~quarter mile in width).

Amazing stuff. I'm thinking we'll find that the rings are composed of dust and debris that has been sorted out by gravity over millions of years to become what they are now.

This image was taken from NASA TV, and shows a portion of the rings of Saturn captured by Cassini. The dark space at left is believed to be the Encke Gap.

This image was taken by Cassini's narrow angle camera and shows the dark, or unlit, side of the rings. The debris making up these rings must be incredibly small!

 

[gofreak]

...

Woah, that photo is incredible. Where did you find it? I can't find it on the NASA site.

Hmm...colour will be so good...

 

[Tritroid]

While i agree that Jupiter may be more interesting on a scientific level, i've always had a thing for Saturn and it's rings. It's just amazes me how the rings, composed of space "debris" orbit the planet so uniformly. In this shot you can see some of the larger objects that form the rings. i don't know the size, but they're MUCH larger than they appear (~quarter mile in width).

The black traces on top of the rings are the ghost-like dust clouds aren't they? I remember studying them in AST a few semesters back; Apparently they never take the same shape or position twice and are constantly varried.

About Europa: Even if there is no actual life found existing on Europa right now, if there is any trace that life previously DID exist there, no matter how small or insignificant, it would still be a remarkable find.

 

[aoi tsuki]

Woah, that photo is incredible. Where did you find it? I can't find it on the NASA site.

Hmm...colour will be so good...

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/latest/index.cfm

Beware some of the other pages on that site that have artist's renderings. Also beware of the raw image search. You can search all 500 images (most aren't too interesting visually) or select criteria.

Kudos to NASA for doing a great job in recent years using the web to keep people abreast of these events.

 

[heavy liquid]

We're now getting pics of the sunlit side of the rings!


The tiny dot in the lower right of the rings is one of Saturn's moons, Prometheus:

This is a pic of the Encke Gap. It's the second largest gap in Saturn's rings (about 200 miles wide)*, and is caused by one of the moons orbiting Saturn:

I *think* this is the Keeler Gap (about 19 miles wide). They believe that the gap is caused by a (as yet undiscovered) moon, and hope that Cassini will find it:

And finally, they don't know what this is yet. The first mystery of the Cassini-Huygens Mission! It's the inner edge of the F ring, and do not know what might have caused this formation:

*corrected

 

[MaddenNFL64]

Jupiter has rings too (faint, but they're there). Seems rings are the norm & not the exception. Of course, Saturn has the most vivid, visible & spectacular rings.

Saturn is everybodies favorite planet (next to ours) it seems . Those gas giants are just something man.

 

[OmniGamer]

Growing up, Neptune was my favorite planet(cuz it was blue and blue is my favorite color)...and i have a thing for Uranus too(since it's the oddball planet). Saturn is too "obvious" to be my fave, though i'm definitely interested in this mission.

Oh, btw, for those that have The Science Channel, there will be a marathon of "The Planets" sometime this weekend.

 

[Sagitario]

Yay!

Saturn is my favorite looking planet... since I was a child...

 

[yoshifumi]

holy shit those are really impressive images.

 

[RiZ III]

WOw I didnt realize that theyre planning to land that thing on Titan! That crazy. I really hope it works.

Those pics are amazing.

 

[Naked Snake]

I seriously doubt the landing will be successful, they fucked up on Mars, and this sounds much more complicated.

 

[MaddenNFL64]

I seriously doubt the landing will be successful, they fucked up on Mars, and this sounds much more complicated.

They didn't fuck up on mars. Both rovers worked & did thier job for months. The Spirit rover had a little glitch for a bit, but they fixed that early on.

 

[RiZ III]

Getting a robot 900 miles from home and sending back what its seeing is no small feat gary. If anyone can land that thing, its these guys.

 

[BuddyC]

They didn't fuck up on mars. Both rovers worked & did thier job for months. The Spirit rover had a little glitch for a bit, but they fixed that early on.

Mars Global Surveyor?

There was the other proble, but I can't remember it's name. Before NASA upped their track record with those two rovers, things weren't looking so hot.

One they don't know what happened to, they just lost contact. The other, one team used the metric while another team used the decimal system.

That said, I do have large degree of faith in NASA, and am quite excited to see the many pretty pictures.

 

[Firest0rm]

THEY DISMISSED GC! OMG!! >: (

 

[Shouta]

which will now try to land on Titan!

=0

 

[Smiles and Cries]

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS
EXCEPT EUROPA
ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE
USE THEM TOGETHER
USE THEM IN PEACE

funny I too remembered that

 

[Naked Snake]

They didn't fuck up on mars. Both rovers worked & did thier job for months. The Spirit rover had a little glitch for a bit, but they fixed that early on.

Read BuddyChrist's post.

 

[ManDudeChild]

Just noting that it's solidifed/metallic hydrogen. Such conditions do not exist on our planet to naturally produce such a thing.

Yeah, due to the pressure.

 

[JackFrost2012]

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS
EXCEPT EUROPA
ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE
USE THEM TOGETHER
USE THEM IN PEACE

+2010 SteveMeister

 

[Kuramu]

This is a pic of the Encke Gap. It's the second largest gap in Saturn's rings (about 12 miles wide), and is caused by one of the moons orbiting Saturn:

shouldn't that be more in the area of 200 milles? i've been searching for sites with this stuff to get a better idea of the scale.

Encke Gap
133,410 km - 133,740 km
http://ringmaster.arc.nasa.gov/saturn/saturn_tables.html

and does that include the ring in the middle? beats me

 

[Kuramu]

cool, the spokes

It was expected that collisions between ring particles would tend to make the rings uniform, but Voyager I found changing structures in the radial direction that are termed "spokes". Some of this structure is shown in the adjacent animation. Here is a smoother and longer movie of the same phenomenon. It is thought that gravitational forces alone cannot account for the spoke structure, and it has been proposed that electrostatic repulsion between ring particles may play a role.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

shouldn't that be more in the area of 200 milles? i've been searching for sites with this stuff to get a better idea of the scale.

Encke Gap
133,410 km - 133,740 km
http://ringmaster.arc.nasa.gov/saturn/saturn_tables.html

and does that include the ring in the middle? beats me

200 miles is a huge change in scale for sure

Saturn is not a small planet at all

 

[Mejilan]

Incredible, I feared it would fail to attain orbit.

My excitement over the project just spiked.

Holy shit!

 

[heavy liquid]

shouldn't that be more in the area of 200 milles? i've been searching for sites with this stuff to get a better idea of the scale.

Encke Gap
133,410 km - 133,740 km

http://www.astrobio.net/news/module...=article&sid=1052&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

The large gap in Saturn's A ring (upper right image), known as the Encke Gap, is the 2nd largest gap in Saturn's ring system. The gap is produced by Pan, a 20-kilometer-wide (12-mile-wide) moonlet that orbits within the gap. As Pan orbits around Saturn, it perturbs the inner edge of the Encke Gap, causing the scalloped-edge effect visible in the center of the image. Pan is a bit of a mystery to scientists because Saturn's gravitational pull, in theory, should prevent a moon from forming so close to Saturn. One possible explanation is that Pan formed farther out from Saturn and later migrated inward.

Cool find on the rings gif, Kuramu! I like!

 

[Kuramu]

The gap is produced by Pan, a 20-kilometer-wide (12-mile-wide) moonlet that orbits within the gap

it's the moon that is 12 miles wide, not the gap. I've been finding some interesting stuff, but what i can't find is an image that points out which rings and gaps correspond to the A B C names. a nice graphic is in order. anyone who finds such a thing gets a cookie

 

[heavy liquid]

it's the moon that is 12 miles wide, not the gap.

Ah, thank you. I read that too quickly, I guess.

This is a chart of the rings and divisions, but I haven't seen a diagram yet. I'll look for one.

http://ringmaster.arc.nasa.gov/saturn/saturn_tables.html

EDIT:

Here's a graphic of the rings. Got it from nineplanets.org.

http://ringmaster.arc.nasa.gov/saturn/images/ring_sat.gif

And here's another image of the rings:

 

[Kuramu]

hey heavy liquid, that image is pretty much what i was looking for. so the cassini division is actually what i thought the enkce gap was. wow, makes things even bigger than i thought

 

[MrPing1000]

Cool, very cool. I think the some of the images don't look real because the shadow is so out of place, it makes the planet look like its been placed wrong

 

[Lucky Forward]

This new view from the Cassini spacecraft captures the true colors of the rings, according to astronomers at the Space Science Institute, which manages the probe's camera.

Cassini was beneath the rings on June 21, about 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) from Saturn when it took this picture. It was released yesterday.

I've been wondering when we're going to start seeing some more spectacular color images. I realize it's a four-year mission and they are probably dong things like calibrating their equipment, but I'm really surprised that there's just been a trickle of black-and-white images since they entered orbit.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

That sho is purty.