New Uranus Moons and Rings Discovered 128
Patrick Furlong writes "CNN reports that the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered two new moons and two new rings around Uranus. The moons had been imaged by Voyager 2 in 1986 but were not recognized as moons at the time." More from MSNBC, and the official Hubble Site. From the CNN article: "The Hubble images also confirmed the existence of another moon, Perdita, which was first identified in the Voyager 2 pictures but had eluded telescopes ever since. Many moons of Uranus are named after characters in Shakespeare, and these new moons follow suit. Mab is named for Queen Mab, who is the subject of a famous speech by the character Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet.'"
After giving it some thought... (Score:1)
Heh - Futurama (Score:5, Funny)
Leela: "I don't get it."
Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?"
Professor: "Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you."
Fry: "Hehe, no, no, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here."
Mod Parent up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mod Parent up (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mod Parent up (Score:1)
live and laugh my friend...
Re:Heh - Futurama (Score:4, Funny)
Jeez, they should implementing testing for qualifications to moderate.
It's either funny, or nothing.
Actually, that's kind of my moto.
Re:Heh - Futurama (Score:1)
What? Nonsense! rand() is a perfectly acceptable function for user selection and software security!
Re:Heh - Futurama (Score:1)
A: "They both fly around Uranus looking for Klingons!"
Guess they found some.
Gasgiant (Score:2)
'See, I took a picture of Uranus; it's got brown rings around it'
Re:Heh - Futurama (Score:1)
Gas giants and rings (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:1, Insightful)
If it were much more massive, it would be a brown dwarf hahahahahahahahaha
It's the seventh-most planet fron the Sun hahahahahahahahaha
Man, I just can't get enough of that planetology humor!
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:1, Funny)
I love Uranus jokes (Score:1)
Seriously though, does ANYONE not LOVE Uranus jokes? Here it it, a massive planet many times larger than ours, and at this point in our space exploration infancy all it's good for is absolutely hilarious ass jokes. DAMN I love Uranus.
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:5, Informative)
Jupiter has thin rings, despite being bombarded a great deal more than Uranus or Saturn, though you'd need to talk to an expert in planetary physics if you have much of a hope of finding out why.
Of the rocky planets, Earth is the only one I know of that has a (natural) ring. It is extremely thin and usually ignored, but does exist. My guess, based on the theory that the moon is a result of a collision between an original Earth and some planet of comparable size, is that the ring is debris that was launched by the collision but did not congeal into the moon as it now is.
The multitude of rings of space junk launched by humans is stupid. That which cannot be retrieved for space museum purposes should be swept up and removed, before it becomes impossible to get into space at all.
Going back to the discoveries - I think it less of a surprise that the discoveries have occured (just think of how many new rings and moons have been discovered around Jupiter and Saturn) than it is a surprise that people haven't found anything before now for Uranus. Its rotation is so strange and its properties so bizare that I would have thought that planetary astronomers would have concentrated extra effort onto it. Discoveries do not come from studying the mundane, they come from studying the exceptions and understanding why and how they have become such.
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:1, Offtopic)
jd wrote:
A cop walking his beat noticed a man, obviously drunk, searching the ground underneath a streetlight.
``Excuse me, sir, but what're you looking for?'' asked the cop.
``My...my keys,'' the drunk stammered. ``I d-dropped 'em.''
The cop paused for a moment, shinin
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:2)
This is actually the premise for one of my favourite anime series; Planetes. The main characters are all members of what is basically a stellar garbage collection service. One of the more original sci-fi series I've seem for a while, mostly because it doesn't run like sci-fi, just like life in the
Don't bother to de-orbit space junk (Score:2, Informative)
Putting weight into a stable orbit is expensive. Let's take the Athena II launch vehicle as an example. To get 1,896 kilograms to low earth orbit it costs about $25,000,000. Which works out to approximately $13,000/kg. You want to de-orbit the payload, the final motor stage, and any other random
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm curious, this is the first I've heard of Earth having a ring. The only reference I can find is a hypothesis of a ring havin
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:3, Informative)
MisterBuggie wrote:
AOL
And, it would seem we're in good company. NASA hasn't heard of one, either. [nasa.gov]
Cheers,
b&
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:2)
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:1)
I've heard of this too, although by "ring" is meant "slightly more dust than in the surrounding interplanetary vacuum". If I remember correctly, the theory is that it's fed by dust kicked up by meteors on the moon. (The formation of the moon was a long time ago; back then, the Earth must have had a fairly impressive and visible ring -- and the young moon was a lot closer, for that matter --, but I don't think any traces would have lasted this long.)
It's in postscript, so be warned! (Score:4, Informative)
The Earth's ring corresponds to Case I in Figure 1, a circular ring with a gap at the location of the planet. However, the Earth's low mass means that it traps relatively few particles; the ring represents a density enhancement of only a few percent. This effect would scarcely appear in an image of the solar system seen from afar.
Re:It's in postscript, so be warned! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:1)
I don't know homeboy, I hear Uranus gets bombarded ALL THE TIME! Oh yes, don't stop the magic.
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:2)
Re:Gas giants and rings (Score:2)
I'd heard... (Score:2)
There names are (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you, I'll be here all night!
Re:There names are (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed you will, it's Friday night afterall.
Hubble? (Score:5, Interesting)
Offtopic? (Score:2)
Re:Offtopic? (Score:1)
Re:Hubble? (Score:2)
Because it might make more financial sense to put up a new space telescope
Re:Hubble? (Score:2)
That famous speech (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That famous speech (Score:1)
And maybe the star Costello with the planets Who, What, I Don't Know ...
"Uranus" (Score:1, Funny)
TV newscasts just got worth watching (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:TV newscasts just got worth watching (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:TV newscasts just got worth watching (Score:1)
Only the worthless ones do. I, for one, am all about YOUR ANUS. As a pronunciation of course.
Who made that name up? (Score:1)
Re:Who made that name up? (Score:2)
Re:Who made that name up? (Score:5, Informative)
Uranus was an early Greek God of the Sky [pantheon.org], Son of Gaia. The word predates the english use of "Your Anus" by a couple thousand years.
Re:Who made that name up? (Score:2)
My Greek Mythology instructor let us all get the giggles out of our system on the first day. Then, to avoid letting loose the child in us all, he said he was going to intentionally mispronounce it as "ooh raw nuss" for the rest of the semester.
It was a surprisingly effective ploy, as nobody made any more jokes about it.
Re:Who made that name up? (Score:1)
Re:Who made that name up? (Score:2)
Oh crap.... (Score:4, Funny)
This all sounds like a Goatse moment if I've ever heard of one
Mustn't click the wrong link...
Re:Oh crap.... (Score:1)
MOD THE TROLL DOWN (Score:1)
Moons (Score:5, Informative)
* Cordelia - 1986
* Ophelia - 1986
* Bianca - 1986
* Cressida - 1986
* Desdemona - 1986
* Juliet - 1986
* Portia - 1986
* Rosalind - 1986
* Belinda - 1986
* Puck - 1986
* Titania - 1787
* Oberon - 1787
* Ariel - 1851
* Miranda - 1948
* Umbriel - ?
* Caliban
* Sycorax
* Prospero
* Setebos
* Stephano
* Perditta - 1986
* Mab - 2005
* Cupid - 2005
Thats a heck of alot of moons!
Re:Moons (Score:1)
Re:Moons (Score:3, Funny)
Donner, Blitzen, et al.
Re:Moons (Score:1)
Re:Moons (Score:3, Informative)
You missed Francisco, Trinculo, Margaret and Ferdinand. They are found in 2001 and 2003.
Re:Moons (Score:1)
Some even reckon Jupiter could have 100..
Testament to their gravity power really..
Bad choice of names (Score:2)
Re:Bad choice of names (Score:2, Informative)
Bah Slashdot Editors (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh well anyway, I think it's pretty neat that after having peered into the darkest depths of space, Hubble can still find interesting things to look at here in our own backyard! You'd think the telescope would have demonstrated its merits enough to not have to constantly exist under threat of having its funding cut and it being deorbited...
Save Hubble then? (Score:1, Interesting)
Topic like flies (Score:1)
Itchy (Score:1, Insightful)
Hemorrhoids (hemroids)
Wow... (Score:3, Funny)
Asstronomy (Score:2)
Oblig Chem Joke (Score:2, Funny)
Uranus is so big... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Uranus is so big... (Score:1)
Uranus Jokes [geocities.com]
Re:Uranus is so big... (Score:2)
(Family Guy, anyone?)
What do the Starship Enterprise... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:What do the Starship Enterprise... (Score:2, Funny)
Q) What do Capt. Kirk and toilet paper have in common.
A) They're both out to get the Klingons.
Re:What do the Starship Enterprise... (Score:2)
Precious (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Precious (Score:2)
Dupe... (Score:2)
But then I discovered that fark is actually two and a half years behind slashdot. [slashdot.org]
Let the jokes begin (Score:1)
Perdita has an appropriate name... (Score:2, Interesting)
the letter U and the numeral 2 (Score:2)
Alien WMD (Score:1)
I read it as: (Score:1)
Now your anus moons and stays uncovered
and i looked back, but luckily it wasnt lol
SETI discovery! (Score:2, Informative)
What's a "moon"? (Score:2)
nice (Score:1)