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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 Tangled Orbits of Saturn's Moons
March 28, 2008 10:36 AM
NASA plans three more closeup passes at Enceladus, the moon of Saturn that has been mysteriously venting organic compounds into the space around it.
Good Friday morning. An update to yesterday's post:
Tom Carnesi, you asked three good questions, and I'll try my best at them.
--How to get closer to Enceladus? I think this was the closest they cared to come--Cassini did wind up probably colliding with material from the geysers near the little moon's south pole. The plan is for the ship to make flybys of as many moons as possible, but it's complicated, not something you can just make happen without using all the fuel left on board.
Three more Enceladus flybys are in the extended mission plan--if they get the funding. (That's a big if. Alan Stern, NASA's head of space science, resigned this week. He gave no explanation, but he's also been caught in the middle of NASA's budget wars.)
--Getting close to Saturn: the limiting factor is not the planet's gravity, but its atmosphere. (Jupiter emits large amounts of radiation, so approach with caution.) Since the Moon has virtually no atmosphere, Apollo flights often orbited only nine miles above the surface--with astronauts joking about that uncharted ten-mile-high mountain dead ahead.
--Pictures of the Sun: Actually, I think it's still plenty bright, even from Saturn's distance. But here's the next best thing: Saturn, as seen so that it blocks the Sun out. This image by Cassini dates from 2006; here's a previous POST of mine about it.
Two things to note about the picture:
1) See how the night side isn't all dark? That's sunlight bouncing off the rings and lighting the whole planet.
2) Click on the picture to enlarge -- it's worth it. To the left and slightly above the planet, right inside the second of those very filmy rings, look for a bright dot. That's Earth--all six billion of us, in our own orbit around the Sun.
March 28, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (11)
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That's an impressive picture of us. It kinda gives one perspective on just how large the Solar System really is, and just how large the galaxy is, and, ultimately, how large the universe is. Suddenly, I feel small and less than insignificant
Posted by: Andy | Mar 28, 2008 12:16:02 PM
yeah, but actualy the earth is much bigger than that...it just looks small cus its far away.
Posted by: n8ick | Mar 28, 2008 12:45:55 PM
Very nice picture. I wish there were more to read about the organics that are being gushed into space by Enceladus. Have we caught any samples yet? Are there plans to do so, if not? id really like to see how life adapted to live in such a cold, harsh environment.
Posted by: Dave | Mar 28, 2008 3:00:25 PM
Note from Ned--
Hello, Dave. I linked to NASA's page in yesterday's post, and I' hope you'll take a look. Cassini wasn't designed to measure samples on board, but it can analyze the composition, temperature, etc., of something it examines from afar. That's why the mission scientists are now reporting the finding of organic molecules.
Does that mean life? Not by a long shot, but it does mean some of the right ingredients. Again, you may take interest in the piece I cited yesterday by Chris McKay and Dennis Matson of NASA.
Posted by: Ned Potter | Mar 28, 2008 3:26:19 PM
Nice picture! (Nice appeal for more funding) Yeah, just say, "We might find life there." If there is life over there, why don't you let them make the trip to discover us?
We need more funding for investigating the thoughts of the mind and other phenomena like that on this planet. You know, the dot in the picture. That's were we need to focus our attention.
Posted by: PQQAm | Mar 29, 2008 12:33:00 AM
Hi Folks;
This is a very interseting prospect,that is, the possibility of finding life in an relatively remote location within the planetary region of our solar system.
If we do find living organisms, even very primitive virus like or simple bacterial organisms around or within Enceladus, this will be a biologists field day. I can just imagine units in high school biology textbooks used by the high school class of 2030 having a discussion of such life forms and any relavent imagery in the form of spectroscopy data sets or charts, microscopy images, and God knows what else.
The search for life in other locations within the solar system such as the moon Europa which seems to have vast salt water oceans beneath its icy crust would be a excellent target for submersible probes that could melt their way through the roughly 1 kilometer thick ice sheet and then take sonar, IR, low optical light enhanced night images, and chemical and microscopic analysis of water samples.
If I ever hear of the discovery of an extraterrestrial ocean fish like creature within the European Seas, I will have to buy a turkey smoker and through one heck of a barbecue cookout party in celebration. Since, I am a relatively healthy middle age adult except for obesity, I still stand a good chance of living to see such a discovery. Can you imagnine the excitement as the Nation and international viewing audience sits down to watch the ABC Nightly News TV broadcast of such a finding?
Regards;
Jim
Posted by: James M. Essig | Mar 29, 2008 2:30:07 AM
That is a great photograph of Saturn and Earth!! Beautiful!!
I remeber several years ago they had a picture taken by Voyager as it was leaving our solar systemlooking back towards earth..I wish I could find this photgraph again
Posted by: Ron | Mar 29, 2008 9:58:23 AM
You can see the picture of the Earth as a pale blue dot taken by Vogager, by simply typing "pale blue dot" on Google. Carl Sagan has written a book based on this idea.
Posted by: Rick | Mar 30, 2008 1:27:20 AM
I think the news of life discovered on another world will be the biggest news on Earth - for about a week.
Posted by: hey Scoob | Mar 30, 2008 3:30:40 PM
Why not start focusing on Sending Robots that China has made to saturn's moon or surface to gather samples and data {Large Quantity} instead of probs with our technology today we should be able acomplish such defeats. Were still useing designs mad from early pioneers. That would be my first act of Congress.
Posted by: Scaredfallen | Mar 31, 2008 12:08:42 AM
Great picture. This one's a keeper! But since we are looking at the dark side of Saturn (meaning that the Sun is directly behind it) shouldn't we be seeing the dark side of Earth also? (Unless the Sun is between Earth and Saturn, which I don't think is the case). How is Earth being illuminated?
Posted by: JM_Brazil | Apr 1, 2008 12:36:40 PM
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