Cassini visits Saturn

[MillCreek]

http://www.npr.org/2017/09/13/550711289/saturns-strangest-sights-as-captured-by-a-doomed-spacecraft?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=science

The video is well worth five minutes of your life.

[RocketMan]

Yes, it was worth the five minutes.  Cool stuff.

[MechAg94]

Thanks for posting. 

[Ben]

That was cool. For me, the hexagonal storm especially so. Not just in trying to contemplate its size, but its shape as well. Maybe it is controlled by the great machine. :)

[TechMan]

Thank you for posting, that was really excellent.

[230RN]

PBS has been running this for a couple of days now:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/death-dive-to-Saturn.html (53:10)

An hour-long NOVA special with much more.   Much sadness in the ground crew, which has been working with the probe practically since it was launched.

Ben's interested in the Hexagonal storm (I am, too), but I wondered about the little "propeller planets" (moons, actually) trying to form in the rings:

https://www.space.com/8731-giant-propellers-discovered-saturn-rings.html

Apparently, gobs of the ring particles are trying to accrete, and this may provide a picture of why the solar system is the way it is.

[Ned Hamford]

That was great.

[Scout26]

I would want my ashes to be on board....

[230RN]

That pale blue dot:



Earth


End of mission:
Disposal - Controlled Re-Entry into Saturn
Last contact - September 15, 2017 (11:55:46) UTC
[Orbital] Decay date - September 15, 2017 (10:31) UTC

Plutonium fuel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens#Plutonium_power_source

Last I heard, each one could still generate about a horsepower each.

Terry, 230RN

PS.  Horsepower, just to note how far we've come since:

The term was adopted in the late 18th century by Scottish engineer James Watt to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses. It was later expanded to include the output power of other types of piston engines, as well as turbines, electric motors and other machinery. :D

[makattak]

I would want my ashes to be on board....

Space X and Blue Origin have a new marketing opportunity.

Imagine your ashes burning up over Saturn or Jupiter. Yeah, it will take a few years, but what's the rush? You're already dead.

[K Frame]

In a few years we'll have

STAR TREK MMMXKDLCIVVV -- HAVEN'T WE DONE THIS BEFORE?

In which the crew of the Enterprise is sent to intercept one VERY pissed off, all knowing, space probe named Cassin'gr...

[230RN]

In a few years we'll have

STAR TREK MMMXKDLCIVVV -- HAVEN'T WE DONE THIS BEFORE?

In which the crew of the Enterprise is sent to intercept one VERY pissed off, all knowing, space probe named Cassin'gr...

"Mr. Spock, you think you can figure out what the hell is on this stupid-looking gold disc?"

"It's just illogical random squiggles, Captain.  There appears to be no way to weaponize it."

"Yeah, I thought so."  <drops disc into waste disposal chute>  "Mr. Sulu, set course to Procyon IV, standard Warp."

<fade to long shot of disc emerging from Enterprise's garbage chute, spinning around, starting on yet another teraparsec journey to... the final frontier>

[AJ Dual]

"Mr. Spock, you think you can figure out what the hell is on this stupid-looking gold disc?"

"It's just illogical random squiggles, Captain.  There appears to be no way to weaponize it."

"Yeah, I thought so."  <drops disc into waste disposal chute>  "Mr. Sulu, set course to Procyon IV, standard Warp."

<fade to long shot of disc emerging from Enterprise's garbage chute, spinning around, starting on yet another teraparsec journey to... the final frontier>

If it was Pioneer 10 or 11...

<fade to shot of Capt. Kirk quietly removing the gold plaque with the nude man and woman on it, to take it to his quarters for "later"...>

[230RN]

^ "If it was Pioneer 10 or 11... "

Poetic / science fiction / imaginative leap license.

[K Frame]

"<fade to shot of Capt. Kirk quietly removing the gold plaque with the nude man and woman on it, to take it to his quarters for "later"...>"

Funny, but EW!

 

[BobR]

"<fade to shot of Capt. Kirk quietly removing the gold plaque with the nude man and woman on it, to take it to his quarters for "later"...>"

Funny, but EW!

 

Wrong color, it would have to be green for Kirk to take that much of a liking to it.

bob

[230RN]

Green Lives Matter

REF:
http://thegreengirlmovie.com/r-i-p-yvonne-craig-2nd-star-trek-green-girl-to-susan-olivers-original/?i=1

[TommyGunn]

Wrong color, it would have to be green for Kirk to take that much of a liking to it.

bob

    That was Captain Christopher Pike.

[K Frame]

    That was Captain Christopher Pike.

Yes it was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dNGU772_cI

[KD5NRH]

Plutonium, intentional crash...sounds like an interplanetary dirty bomb to me.

[230RN]

Yeah, 35kg of pretty much spent plutonium over a planet that big.

Dilution is the pollution solution.

Terry, 230RN

[230RN]

Proofreader's / editor's eyeballs waking up this AM:

Why did they call it "re-entry" into Saturn?

How do you "burn up" your ashes?

<sips coffee>

<contemplates the "Oh, you know what I mean" demon and Humpty Dumpty's remarks about meaning>

<thinks about going out for a steak and eggs breakfast except Davie's Chuck Wagon Diner doesn't open until 6 AM on Sunday and it's now only quarter 'till five>

Terry

[Mannlicher]

I suppose the lefty anti nuke  crowd is still angry about the nuclear powered Cassini.   What a silly squabble that was.

[230RN]

I suppose the lefty anti nuke  crowd is still angry about the nuclear powered Cassini.   What a silly squabble that was.

Well, there have been "incidents" with these power supplies --enough to keep us on our toes, I guess.

One in particular was "amusing" in a "man proposes, G-d disposes" sort of way:

One RTG [Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator], the SNAP-19C, was lost near the top of Nanda Devi mountain in India in 1965.  It was stored in a rock formation near the top of the mountain in the face of a snowstorm before it could be installed. It was supposed to power a CIA automated station for collecting telemetry from a Chinese rocket testing facility.

The seven capsules[34] were carried down the mountain onto a glacier by an avalanche and never recovered.

It is most likely that they melted through the glacier and were pulverized, whereupon the 238 plutonium - zirconium alloy fuel oxidized [ "and mixed with ?"] soil particles which are now apparently moving in a plume under the glacier.

(Extensively edited by 230RN for clarity. See original):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#Radioactive_contamination

Or maybe that should be, "CIA proposes, China disposes."

It's hard to believe the Chinese were not well-aware of this project, and, you know, it's not all that difficult to start an avalanche all innocent-like.  :D

Terry, 230RN

[K Frame]

Given how much radiation Saturn generates all on its own, plus the fact that there's no actual land masses on Saturn, no one is ever going to have to worry about that Plutonium.