Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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The Moons of Saturn
March 21, 2007 1:22 PM
Titan, Tethys, Enceladus, Dione...the names are from ancient mythology, but they live on today, more than half a billion miles from Earth, in the magnificent, frozen wastes around Saturn.
Those are the names of some of Saturn's moons--34 have been named so far--and they're featured in some time-lapse movies, just released by the operators of the Hubble Space Telescope. (Some of the images were actually shot as long ago as 1995, but only now released in sequence.)
Click HERE for a small Quicktime version if your bandwidth is limited.
Click HERE for a larger Quicktime, or HERE for Windows Media.
The picture above shows Titan, the largest of the moons, casting its shadow on Saturn's clouds as it orbits. The picture is not distorted. Saturn is actually oblong, wider at its equator because it turns so quickly. A day on Saturn--if you could find a safe place to stand on that gas giant--takes less than ten hours.
A mysterious, vast world. The Space Telescope Science Institute has more time-lapse movies, and more images, HERE. Meanwhile, NASA's Cassini probe continues to orbit Saturn; more HERE.
March 21, 2007 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (9)
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Many thanks for the fascinating time-lapse video links, Ned, as well as for the links to Space Telescope Science Institute and the NASA Cassini probe site. The ringed planet continues to fascinate with its yet undiscovered secrets!
Posted by: chuck | Mar 21, 2007 2:31:01 PM
Not only is it beautiful, it floats!
Posted by: Andy | Mar 21, 2007 5:39:11 PM
Fantastic! I can't believe that budget cutters are actually thinking about shutting Hubble down.
Small minds.....
Posted by: Dave | Mar 21, 2007 6:10:04 PM
wow sooooo kool
Posted by: gkfjdgls | Mar 21, 2007 6:46:52 PM
Truly amazing work from the guys at NASA. Thanks for the links.
Posted by: Brian Maynard | Mar 21, 2007 6:59:16 PM
Yup, we can't afford this anymore, we need to pay for our wars.
It's just good bidness.
Posted by: George | Mar 21, 2007 8:12:21 PM
Hubble's going to be fine.
Posted by: Kate | Mar 22, 2007 7:22:35 PM
It would take a commercial jet 10 billion years to traverse the Milky Way, and it is but a speck in the universe. How can we afford not to continue to explore. Think of the immensity of it all. To surmise we are alone out there is as ludicrous an idea as the earth being flat or it being the center of everything. Only a self-centered being would consider us cental or alone.
Posted by: Arthur Glazer | Mar 25, 2007 12:52:26 PM
Good for you, Arthur! I'm still struck by Carl Sagan's words from his book "Contact", wherein he says that if we're alone, it's a heckuva waste of space.
Posted by: Andy | Mar 26, 2007 2:10:25 PM
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