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Cassini Returns Photos of Hyperion
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Sun Oct 02, 2005 06:59 PM
from the bigger-better-luffas dept.
from the bigger-better-luffas dept.
imipak writes "The Cassini Saturn probe has captured the previously unseen northern polar region of Saturn's moon Hyperion. Its weirdly eroded surface looks like nothing else in the solar system seen so far, demonstrating once again that when it comes to planetary exploration, "expect the unexpected" is more than just glib advice from the Hitch-hiker's Guide!"
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What is that? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What is that? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What is that? (Score:3, Funny)
[humor]
How did the Nazis get to Hyperion 60 years ago???
[/humor]
Re:What is that? (Score:3)
Re:What is that? (Score:5, Funny)
You mean the words that say, "DB_Session allocated the following problem: DB Error: connect failed"? Something tells me it is an earthy artifact.
Parent
Re:What is that? (Score:3, Interesting)
The JPL page says the straight line is probably a fault or other geological feature, but the absence of any others in that area is a little suspicious.
I blew up that section a bit, and it looks a LOT like something diamond- or arrowhead-shaped came screeching along the surface and plowed into the side of a hill, kicking up surface material and burying the leading edge. The "buried" object itself seems to be very sharply defined with straight lines, as opposed to the more "natural"
Re:What is that? (Score:4, Interesting)
The line really looks like a depression in that one, whereas in the false colour image it could be a protrusion.
I blew it up considerably in Photoshop and increased the contrast to see details better. There are a number of smaller craters directly in the path of the line. If it were a rock impact, to my (non-astrophysicist/geologist) eye it looks like it behaved like a skipping stone - There are some bigger craters near where the top of the image cuts off the line, and about halfway along there's a pair on opposite sides of what appears to be a hill, as if it were skating along, used the hill as a jump, landed, and continued its movement.
The bigger feature at the end of the line seems more symmetrical in this version. It looks kind of like a Concorde... or a giant bird footprint. Watch out Tethys, Colonel Sanders is too far away to save you.
Parent
Re:What is that? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, if you look at the Hi res TIFF version [nasa.gov] you can see several more of them. None as large and obvious, but I found at least five or so linear formations in that picture. There is a cluster of three at the bottom beneath the obvious one.
Re:What is that? (Score:4, Informative)
Suddenly, it looks absolutely not "artificial" and a whole lot like a fault line. You can even see a bunch of other smaller/thinner lines in the image. The "buried" object looks irregular, with absolutely no sharp definition or straight lines at all. Looks like just an oddly eroded area.
Parent
Re:What is that? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
The Internet has RESURRECTED interest in space! (Score:3, Interesting)
Cassini was helped to more funding because WE the geeks of Web/Net WANT TO KNOW. We want to see our world, our Universe. We join advocacy groups and science foundations.
Keep up the good work NASA. Let private groups continue as well.
I see a 2nd space renaissance soon!
That's no moon... (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing else? (Score:2, Funny)
Is that what nothing else looks like, or is that what everything else looks like?
Either way, this article proves we shouldn't make general statements like that, doesn't it?
Re:Nothing else? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Many uses! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Many uses! (Score:2, Insightful)
That is because you leave all your grimey toy spaceships in the tub
Wrong moon. (Score:5, Informative)
It was a double flyby, hence the confusion.
Re:Wrong moon. (Score:5, Informative)
One of the links in the post is of Tethys, not Hyperion. Look for yourself!
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/imag
Someone should correct the post.
Parent
Re:Wrong moon. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wrong moon. (Score:4, Insightful)
I must not be in the majority then. I took it to mean: "Here's a picture of something you won't find anywhere else in the solar system".
Parent
Imagine (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Imagine (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
As usual, slashdot editing leaves a bit (Score:5, Informative)
The two pictures are from different moons, Tethys (second link), Hyperion (first link). Perhaps reading a caption from the real article at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm [nasa.gov] would help
Re:As usual, slashdot editing leaves a bit (Score:2, Insightful)
When you have 99.5% of all your submissions rejected, one tends to lose the motivation.
Uh oh... (Score:3, Funny)
big crater and then small ones (Score:4, Interesting)
But the first picture looks like there was just big collision (old big crater) followed by lots of small collisions, without any erosion in between. I *think* I have seen similar features on the moon.
To have this picture is nonetheless an astonishing accomplishment.
I think that simply the lighting makes this view impressive
Re:big crater and then small ones (Score:3, Interesting)
Weird (Score:2)
Re:Weird (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's a microscopic picture, I have to ask - what browser are you using to view it?
Bad jokes aside, this is what a magnified grain of salt looks like:
(it's pretty enough to make desktop wallpaper)
Parent
Oh please (Score:5, Funny)
Kind of reminds me of something like... (Score:3)
Any photos of... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Any photos of... (Score:2)
Ive scene this. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ive scene this. (Score:2)
How about we avoid works from The Goatse School of Visual Articulation.
Hate to break it to ya... (Score:2)
That's a patently false statement. Walk up to any person with a printout of this photo, and ask them, "Hey, does this look like anything you've seen in the solar system so far?" They'll probably say, "Yeah, it looks like a sponge" or "Yeah, it looks like pumice" or "Yeah, it looks like my mother-in-law's face".
Perhaps it doesn't look like any other celestial body we've seen so far.
Looks Like Sublimated Ice (Score:3, Interesting)
Material (Score:3, Funny)
IMHO (Score:3, Interesting)
Great Expectorations (Score:3, Interesting)
Looks like nothing else in the solar system? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=c
JPEG vs TIFF (Score:3, Interesting)
What I'm trying to ask is, does anyone else notice a major difference between the two without using the GIMP @ 7 or 8X zoom?
Possible Interpretation (Score:5, Informative)
You can see the raised part in the centre, around which is part of the old crater wall.
Note the crater wall is significantly brighter than the surrounds - this is exposed materials, mainly water ice to judge from the brightness.
The other thing to note is that the crater is incomplete, and is itself riddled with craters, both the centre and the crater walls. This tells us that the large crater is very old. How old I would leave to an expert of the Saturnian system, who would no more about impact frequencies than me.
Hyperion is interesting in that it is the largest irregular body in the solar system. Anything larger (and many smaller objects) are pulled into a spherical shape by their own gravity. Hyperion is not that much smaller than Enceladus, and is of a similar make-up (frozen H2O) yet these object are very different.
I would hypothesise that a large impact has sheared off part of Hyperion- that's why the large crater is incomplete - the rest is gone, possibly to become part of the ring material but I don't know what the timing of that blast was.
The very strange not-really-craters next to the very large impact crater I would say were outgassing artefacts, not any type of impact crater. Basically the heat from the large impact caused volatiles to rocket out of Hyperion, leaving those sort of "exit valve" formations.
Re:conjecture (Score:2)
Re:something similar on asteroids, (to some extent (Score:4, Interesting)
However, in the asteroid belt especially, many collisions may be elastic, with bodies bouncing off each other like billiard balls, leaving behind large indentations. This could happen, as these bodies are moving in essentially the same direction and therefore collisions may not always have much force.
Parent
Re:something similar on asteroids, (to some extent (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is it too much to ask... (Score:3, Informative)
That means "It is weirdly eroded surface".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Its [wikipedia.org]
Re:Uhmmm. We sure about these? (Score:5, Informative)
- In space, the lack of atmosphere gives things an "unreal" look in photographs. See if you can dig up the movie that was done by Messenger as it left Earth. It actually looks less "believable" than a modern Hollywood movie in some ways.
- The images are false colour. This is useful for conveying more information, but it does make them look a little "wrong."
For comparison, here's another version of the Tethys shot [nasa.gov]. It looks a lot less surreal, because it's greyscale.
Parent
Re:Erosion? don't make me laugh (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Its by Saturn which has a massive gravitational pull. This causes Saturn to pull in a lot of comets, asteroids, and dust. Thus Saturn gets hit with a lot more debris then the planets in the inner solar system. This would also increase the risk of the moons getting hit with this debris as well and therefore will have more impacts then that of the planets and moons in which we know.
2) Saturn has rings filled with debris. So if the moon ever happened to swing into these rings it would go through hundreds if not thousands of impacts. That could have very well created the surface that you see. This could have happened at any time in the moons history and so is a very likely cause.
3) The moon could have some sort geological processes that are responsible for such a surface, however thats very unlikely.
Personally I would put my bet on number 2 cause it makes the most sense. If the moon went through on of Saturns rings especially when the rings might have just formed there would have been a lot of collisions leaving the surface scarred like you see in the picture.
Parent
Re:It's not a visible image (Score:3, Informative)
They can s