Enceladus Spreads Ghostly Ice Tendrils Around Saturn 33
astroengine writes A ghostly apparition has long been known to follow Saturn moon Enceladus in its orbit around the gas giant. But until now, scientists have had a hard time tracking its source. Using images from NASA's Cassini mission, the source of these tendrils have been tracked down and they originate from the icy moon's famous geysers. But even better than that, scientists have been able to track the tendril shapes down to the specific geysers that produce them. "We've been able to show that each unique tendril structure can be reproduced by particular sets of geysers on the moon's surface," said Colin Mitchell, a Cassini imaging team associate at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., and lead author of a paper published int he Astrophysical Journal. The study of these features are helping scientists understand how much ice is being transported into Saturn's E ring from Enceladus as well as helping us understand the evolution of the moon's sub-surface ocean.
GALACTIC TENTACLE PORN (Score:1, Funny)
Eat my galactic testicles? Put your tentacles through my ears and out my eyeballs. MMMMM, Manga!
Re: (Score:2)
Tendrils, not tentacles.
Enceladus, not enchilada.
What if (Score:1)
If this keeps up, there may someday be a huge ring around Saturn.
Space Ghost (Score:1)
Wow ... (Score:3)
That's just awesome ... in the literal meaning of the word. Space has such cool stuff in it.
"Begging your pardon, Sir, but it's a big-ass sky!"
Re: Niggers? (Score:1)
Amazing. A nice little post about an interesting NASA probe and we get conspiracy theories.
I hope you're proud of yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
It was there a minute ago! It's a conspiracy I tell you!
Re: (Score:2)
Up-mod for Armageddon reference had I the points!!
But, agreed, I could definitely devote a career and life's work to studying space, astrophysics and cosmology more precisely, heh.
Enceladus (Score:5, Interesting)
In case anyone cares, Enceladus was one of the children of Uranus and Gaia, one of a race of giants. Depending on which version you prefer, he was either killed by Athena or by Silenus, the drunken butt-buddy of Dionysus and buried on the isle of Sicily. I prefer the Athena story, because Athena was hot.
Esoteric circles believe that the giants that appear in almost every single culture's mythology were actually the first draft of the Annunaki, who bred them here on Earth as miners after they came here from Nubaru (or "Planet X"), until one of the Shining Ones decided to breed with a primate female, creating homo sapiens. And then all hell broke loose.
I'm pretty sure it's all BS, but I like a good story, and really, who knows? Newspapers from the 1800s and early 1900s were full of stories of giant skeletons being found in burial mounds before the US government, acting completely unlike themselves, decided to make it a federal crime to dig at the megalithic burial mounds, citing "respect for Native American culture" (which, considering history, really doesn't sound like the US government. Newspaper reports from that time about these skeletons and mummies being found definitely exist, but like I said, it's probably all BS. It still makes for a good tale, though.
Entheogenic madman Graham Hancock presents the saga here, in case you want a spooky bedtime story. http://www.grahamhancock.com/f... [grahamhancock.com]
Re: (Score:3)
In case anyone cares, Enceladus was one of the children of Uranus and Gaia [...]
Hm. I thought it was a corn tortilla rolled around a filling and covered with a chili pepper sauce.
The more you know...
Re: (Score:2)
I just read a history of the Mississippi before the Civil War and I seem to remember something about large bones being discovered in giant burial mounds found near the flood plain.
I think they also mentioned that before the Corps of Engineers "tamed" the Mississippi (ie, turned it into an navagation canal) the regular flooding and natural erosion of the wild river would periodically expose giant bones, although those I believe were attributed to dinosaurs.
This increases the possibility of life at Saturn (Score:3)
If low-gravity icy moons are outgassing into orbit, they must be sharing chemistry, perhaps including the precursors of life. Since Saturn's moons have widely differing widely differing geology and chemistry, that's a lot of mixing going on into a lot of potential niches.
Now consider that the same thing is probably happening at Jupiter.
Electric Geyser (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Squeezed out? (Score:2)