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Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn

Posted by Zonk on Sun Mar 04, 2007 10:51 PM
from the extremely-attractive-planet dept.
Space NASA Science
SeaDour writes "The Cassini spacecraft has recently entered a highly-inclined orbit around Saturn, revealing some never-before-seen images of the planet's ring system as seen from above and below the planet. 'Sailing high above Saturn and seeing the rings spread out beneath us like a giant, copper medallion is like exploring an alien world we've never seen before. It just doesn't look like the same place. It's so utterly breath-taking, it almost gives you vertigo.' The spacecraft will eventually return to its standard orbit parallel to the ring plane in late June."
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[+] Cassini Observes Hurricane-Like Storm On Saturn 69 comments
Aglassis writes "The Cassini spacecraft recently observed a hurricane-like storm on the south pole of Saturn. What makes this storm particularly interesting is that this is the first time that a clearly defined eyewall has been seen outside of the Earth in the Solar System. Neither the Great White Spot of Saturn nor the Great Red Spot of Jupiter have had an observable eyewall. NASA, JPL, and the Space Science Institute have released a short movie of the motion around the eyewall (mirrored at YouTube)."
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Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn 50 Comments More /

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  • Vertigo? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by catbutt (469582) on Sunday March 04 2007, @10:58PM (#18233498)
    I mean, its neat and all, but is showing a different perspective, that really provides no new information, really worth all those over-the-top effusive words? "Alien world we've never seen before"? Or just one we have seen before, but from a 45 degree different angle?

    • Re:Vertigo? (Score:5, Informative)

      by CheshireCatCO (185193) on Sunday March 04 2007, @11:35PM (#18233786) Homepage
      The different angles are actually very important when working on the rings. The photometry changes radically at different phase angles, from different latitudes, and when viewing different ring longitude. From the variations we can deduce a great deal about structures in the rings, particle sizes, and so forth.
      • Can we determine the best way to make artificial shepherd moons to steer the particles into large ore harvesting facilities? Let's get this space colonization started, wooooo! Seriously, are rings and planets around gas giants good places to setup shop for the outer solar system? I mean Titan alone can provide billions of tons of methane.
        • So what? who would need methane in a space colony?
          • They wouldn't need methane in the colony, per se. (As a matter of fact, they'd want to avoid methane in the colony. Especially the chili induced variety). However, methane could be valuable as a propellant, or as a starting point for some food processing technology.
        • Can we determine the best way to make artificial shepherd moons to steer the particles into large ore harvesting facilities?

          Yes, if we have about another century of experience with robotic spacecraft. Of course, we won't get that if we burn most of our space budget on joy rides to the moon and Mars, both of which will likely get canceled before they ever get off the ground.

  • Parallel? Coplanar. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sparr0 (451780) <sparr0NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday March 04 2007, @11:03PM (#18233534) Homepage Journal
    Wouldn't the 'equatorial' orbit be coplanar with the rings, not parallel?

    • Re:Parallel? Coplanar. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CheshireCatCO (185193) on Sunday March 04 2007, @11:26PM (#18233720) Homepage
      I suspect that the term "parallel" was chosen because "coplanar" isn't as widely understood among the general public. When writing press-releases they have to strike a delicate balance between complete accuracy and comprehension. There's a sort of perverse Heisenberg Uncertainty principle at play, there.
  • Their servers now look like rings of Saturn too.

  • Images hosted by NASA (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2007, @11:05PM (#18233546)
    Go here http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/index .cfm [nasa.gov] to get bigger and more images from NASA, instead of the currently ddo.. I mean /.ed news sites.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by maglor_83 (856254)
      Can anyone explain why in this picture [nasa.gov] Saturn obscures the rings on both the near and far sides?
      • The crescent-like "shadow" on the surface of Saturn itself is the area where the rings block the sunlight. The reason you don't see the rear part of the rings is because Saturn itself is blocking them from the Sun's light.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Matt Edd (884107)
          I don't think that's what he ment. The reason is because Saturn is so bright that it washes out the belt at the bottom.
        • Exactly, Saturn is very reflective (relative to the rings) and we're seeing it through the C ring, which is itself a pretty tenuous ring relative to the A and B rings. (It's also possible that there's some "bleed" in the CCD if Saturn is too over-exposed. Honestly, rings scientists would love to just remove the planet completely...)
      • Easily - it doesn't. On the near side the (fairly) bright planet shines through the (nearly) transparent rings.

  • Other pics (Score:4, Informative)

    by ischorr (657205) on Sunday March 04 2007, @11:13PM (#18233618)
    The linked photo site was almost immediately Slashdotted so I'm not sure what they contained, but there are pictures on NASA's site here:

    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/20 070301.html [nasa.gov]
  • seeing the rings spread out beneath us like a giant, copper medallion is like exploring an alien world we've never seen before.

    Its too bad Mars (probably) doesn't have tangible rings. Because as they say, "if you can't support a medallion, you can't support a family". And if you can't support a family, then you must be a liberal arts major and trying to colonize Mars.

    Or something

  • And where would that be exactly? Surely, by convention the probe is above the planet - wherever it is in its orbit?

    • Nope, at least not if you're interested in Saturn. The rings, being planar, make a strong case for an "above" and a "below". So we frequently do use those terms, at least speaking loosely. I can't recall the same being true for other planets, although it might be.

      • all the planets orbit the sun in a similar equatorial plane.
        Ecliptic plane, you mean? The equatorial planes are wildly different.
  • ...planet. Y'know, it doesn't have the same ring(s) to it.

  • the planet's ring system as seen from above and below the planet

    How do you tell above vs. below in the context?

    • I think "above" in the solar system is the direction that is perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the planets, and that roughly corresponds to north (but is actually 23.5 degrees from earth-north).

  • Thanks to American taxpayers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2007, @12:35AM (#18234186)
    Thanks to American taxpayers for footing a couple hundred million dollars for some great desktop backgrounds.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Thanks to American taxpayers for footing a couple hundred million dollars for some great desktop backgrounds.

      The U.S. contributed $2.6 billion [wikipedia.org] dollars to this mission.

    • Dang, I wish I paid for the cheap, discounted space agency you apparently contract out to for great desktop backgrounds! The Cassini project actually will cost about 3.2 billion dollars. (Portions paid in Euros, because our friends in Europe decided that they, too, had too much taxpayer money on hand). See: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/mission.cfm [nasa.gov]

      (Incidentally, 3.2 billion is also how much karma I have lost for pasting that link on Cassini stories. Let no one say that I'm unwilling to sacrifice for sc

  • pay attention! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Insurgent2 (615836) on Monday March 05 2007, @12:36AM (#18234200)
    Am I the *only* one here who noticed the extensive glacial retreat evident when comparing these images to the ones from when it arrived in 2004?!?!?
    • The only reason Saturn, Mars, and Earth would all warm up simultaneously would be from changes in solar output, which would endanger the grants of hundreds of atmospheric scientists who've bet their (and their grad students) careers on the cause being atmospheric CO2!
  • ...fly that thing into one of the more placid ring planes and really get attention.
    • We're not even allowed to fly through most of the thinnest rings, let alone the ones visible from Earth. Still, plowing through the B ring is my favorite end-of-mission scenario. If you have to destroy the spacecraft, you might as well doing it in a fun way.

  • Who cares about the rings! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jugalator (259273) on Monday March 05 2007, @03:01AM (#18234944) Journal
    Now this is more "amazing" to me:
    http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image -details.cfm?imageID=2502 [nasa.gov]

  • ...revealing some never-before-seen images of the planet's ring system...

    Well at least not by the carbon-based sentient life forms on the 3rd planet from the sun in this very same solar system.

      • Re:Walter Reed (Score:5, Informative)

        by oaklybonn (600250) on Sunday March 04 2007, @11:20PM (#18233668)
        I can't believe I'm bothering to reply to this AC...
        http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/overview/index.cfm [nasa.gov]

        Cassini-Huygens is an international collaboration between three space agencies. Seventeen nations contributed to building the spacecraft. The Cassini orbiter was built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Huygens probe was built by the European Space Agency. The Italian Space agency provided Cassini's high-gain communication antenna. More than 250 scientists worldwide are studying the data streaming back from Saturn on a daily basis.

        --ob
        • Don't forget the invention of pizza (ok, the idea to put stuff on a flat dough and bake it wasn't all that new, but to name it 'pizza' was) and Chop Suey (which was invented as a 'chinese style' meal for U.S. americans).

        • Spare me your anti-American B.S. The U.S. has been a leader in modern technology for a long time. Europe and China provided the foundation for mechanical and chemical engineering. The bulk of modern electrical engineering came from the U.S.

          The computer you typed your post on almost certainly used a CPU made by an American company, for example. Intel, AMD, Cyrix/NatSemi... the only major one I'm aware of that is not a U.S. company is VIA (Japanese company). The first microprocessors were invented appr

      • It's not slashdotted, it's just the latency you get when you download a movie from Saturn. The round trip takes more than two hours, please be patient.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      FYI, the crappy "ciclops" site is the homepage of the Cassini imaging team: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations.
    • Are you using "crappy" to mean "Slashdotted"? Seems rather an unfair use of the adjective.
      • Flamebait, sheesh.

        Seriously, they look like somthing I could make in photoshop.
        Am I looking at the wrong ones or somthing ?
    • I'll stick here closer to the Sun. Global warming is a minor nusiance compared to the mean temprature on Saturn.

      The mean temperature on Saturn (at the cloud tops) is 88 K (-185 C; -290 F).

      Maybe it is warmer on the surface, but with all the clouds in the way, I don't think the view is great.
      • The mean temperature on Saturn (at the cloud tops) is 88 K (-185 C; -290 F).

        I'll just wear a thick wooley jumpey when I go outside. :)
        • Before venturing out, research the planet.

          I'll just wear a thick wooley jumpey when I go outside. :)

          They don't call it a gas giant for nothing. The surface is less dense than water. You might be suprised by the distance you would sink into the surface.

          Saturn's interior composition is primarily that of simple molecules such as hydrogen and helium, which are liquids under the high pressure environments found in the interiors of the outer planets, and not solids.

          Quote blatenly stolen from;
          http://www.windows. [ucar.edu]
          • "Oh, right, because any political system that isn't an outright representative democracy is a dictatorship. Please travel more, or at least just get an education."

            Wow! The grandparent is a moron, but the parent is also something special. We're hair splitting, but I'll bite. Every government system that is not an outright representative democracy IS a dictatorship. What do monarchies, dictatorships, theocracies, oligarchies, etc. all have in common? The common citizen has no legal recourse for changing

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