cool. but is that, like, a shit load of trucks coming towards us over the horizon?
― Summer Slam! (Ste), Wednesday, 5 October 2011 09:24 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
otm looks like burning man
― caek, Wednesday, 5 October 2011 13:28 (1 year ago) Permalink
Dione has a very very thin oxygen atmosphere
― Stockhausen's Ekranoplan Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 05:28 (1 year ago) Permalink
Time to migrate.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 05:37 (1 year ago) Permalink
Saturn’s Largest Moon Seen in Unprecedented Detail
― Stockhausen's Ekranoplan Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Sunday, 11 March 2012 07:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
Subject line says it all: Massive Ice Avalanches on Iapetus
― Reality Check Cashing Services (Elvis Telecom), Friday, 23 March 2012 23:56 (1 year ago) Permalink
What things might sound like on Titan (the waterfall and splashdown sounds are great!)
― Reality Check Cashing Services (Elvis Telecom), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 09:54 (1 year ago) Permalink
― Reality Check Cashing Services (Elvis Telecom), Tuesday, 24 April 2012 00:22 (1 year ago) Permalink
the people i work with are v upset because this thing got selected by a science panel instead of an x-ray telescope, but tbh i think it looks awesome
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=107
― caek, Tuesday, 24 April 2012 00:29 (1 year ago) Permalink
some more links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17773383andyxl.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/x-ray-astronomy-crunch/andyxl.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/turbulence-in-the-gravy-waves/
― caek, Tuesday, 24 April 2012 00:33 (1 year ago) Permalink
That's no moon, that's a Kuiper Belt Object
Saturn’s curious moon Phoebe features a heavily-cratered shape and orbits the ringed planet backwards at a considerable distance of over 8 million miles (12.8 million km). According to recent news from the Cassini mission Phoebe may actually be a Kuiper Belt object, having more in common with planets than it does with any of Saturn’s other satellites.132 miles (212 km) in diameter, Phoebe is the largest of Saturn’s irregular moons — a cloud of small, rocky worlds held in distant orbits at highly inclined paths. Its backwards (retrograde) motion around Saturn and dense composition are dead giveaways that it didn’t form in situ within the Saturnian system, but rather was captured at some point when it strayed too close to the gas giant.In fact it’s now thought that Phoebe may be a remnant from the formation of the Solar System — a planetesimal — with its own unique history predating its adoption into Saturn’s extended family of moons.
132 miles (212 km) in diameter, Phoebe is the largest of Saturn’s irregular moons — a cloud of small, rocky worlds held in distant orbits at highly inclined paths. Its backwards (retrograde) motion around Saturn and dense composition are dead giveaways that it didn’t form in situ within the Saturnian system, but rather was captured at some point when it strayed too close to the gas giant.
In fact it’s now thought that Phoebe may be a remnant from the formation of the Solar System — a planetesimal — with its own unique history predating its adoption into Saturn’s extended family of moons.
― Reality Check Cashing Services (Elvis Telecom), Monday, 30 April 2012 02:57 (1 year ago) Permalink
juice confirmed: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/may/02/juice-picked-for-launch. launch in 2022, reaches jupiters moons in 2030, so perhaps a bit early to change the thread title, but it's going to be rad.
― caek, Thursday, 3 May 2012 10:11 (1 year ago) Permalink
― it was a dark and stormy genitals. (Phil D.), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 13:19 (11 months ago) Permalink
Looking at landslides on Iapetus: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/20121001-iapetus-sturzstroms.html
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 08:11 (7 months ago) Permalink
Saturn's North Polar Vortex
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 28 November 2012 21:53 (5 months ago) Permalink
The vortex itself is just a small feature at the center of the northern hexagon
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 28 November 2012 21:54 (5 months ago) Permalink
Close-up picture is about 3km per pixel - picture-width is about as big as the Moon.
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 28 November 2012 21:55 (5 months ago) Permalink
Guh at all that. The hexagon! If only Clarke had learned about THAT.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 28 November 2012 21:56 (5 months ago) Permalink
holy fuck, that's amazing
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Thursday, 29 November 2012 02:06 (5 months ago) Permalink
Not a Cassini image, just cool space stuff: ‘Overmassive’ black hole holds the mass of 17 billion suns: http://theconversation.edu.au/overmassive-black-hole-holds-the-mass-of-17-billion-suns-11066
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Thursday, 29 November 2012 05:03 (5 months ago) Permalink
O_O at the hexagon
― Tome Cruise (Matt P), Thursday, 29 November 2012 05:15 (5 months ago) Permalink
I'm totally starting a Hawkwind-esque space rock band called SATURN'S HEXAGON
― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 29 November 2012 05:47 (5 months ago) Permalink
Hawksagon
― nickn, Thursday, 29 November 2012 06:20 (5 months ago) Permalink
the hexagon does not care, it does not love
― ゑ (clouds), Thursday, 29 November 2012 13:07 (5 months ago) Permalink
It's thought to be linked to these radio emmisions.http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07966.html
― Paul McCartney, the Gary Barlow of The Beatles (snoball), Thursday, 29 November 2012 13:14 (5 months ago) Permalink
Hexagon in color
― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 29 November 2012 23:30 (5 months ago) Permalink
More Iapetus theories
Iapetus, one of Saturn’s weirdest moons, has an enormous equatorial mountain ridge, a spiky belt that rises 12 miles above the moon’s surface. How Iapetus built that belt – the only one of its kind ever observed – has been a persistent conundrum.Now, scientists suggest that a giant impact early in Iapetus’ history knocked the moon around, dramatically slowing its rotation rate and deforming its crust. After 1 million years, Iapetus began to resemble the walnut-shaped satellite it is today: flatter at the poles, and with a ridge extending most of the way around its middle, suggested planetary scientist Gabriel Tobie of France’s University of Nantes here at the American Geophysical Union conference Dec. 4.Earlier ideas describing the birth of the Iapetian belt invoke tectonic activity within the moon itself, or the brief presence of a impact-produced satellite – a smaller body that wandered too close to Iapetus and was shredded, briefly forming a ring that disintegrated over the moon’s equator.Tobie and his colleagues simulated the Iapetian early years and came up with a different story. Shortly after it formed, Iapetus spun around itself once every six hours or so. But after about 10 million years of unperturbed rotation, an object between 500 and 650 miles wide zoomed in and face-planted on the moon.The collision disrupted the moon’s rotation rate, immediately slowing it to more than 30 hours per pirouette. Such rapid braking stretched and deformed the moon’s crust, flattening its poles and pinching the ridge around its middle, Tobie demonstrated in a 3-D simulation. “It is possible for a single impact to change the rotation of Iapetus,” he said, noting a 500-mile-wide crater that could be a scar left over from the collision. “We can generate a ridge only if the body rotates very, very fast initially.”While the theory is intriguing, some scientists at the presentation were skeptical, suggesting that it might not be as easy to despin the moon as suggested, and that the simulation may not have gotten Iapetus’ interior quite right. Another persistent mystery is the fact that the ridge isn’t wrapped all the way around the moon.Like the rest of the theories, this newest idea can’t answer those questions, yet.
Now, scientists suggest that a giant impact early in Iapetus’ history knocked the moon around, dramatically slowing its rotation rate and deforming its crust. After 1 million years, Iapetus began to resemble the walnut-shaped satellite it is today: flatter at the poles, and with a ridge extending most of the way around its middle, suggested planetary scientist Gabriel Tobie of France’s University of Nantes here at the American Geophysical Union conference Dec. 4.
Earlier ideas describing the birth of the Iapetian belt invoke tectonic activity within the moon itself, or the brief presence of a impact-produced satellite – a smaller body that wandered too close to Iapetus and was shredded, briefly forming a ring that disintegrated over the moon’s equator.
Tobie and his colleagues simulated the Iapetian early years and came up with a different story. Shortly after it formed, Iapetus spun around itself once every six hours or so. But after about 10 million years of unperturbed rotation, an object between 500 and 650 miles wide zoomed in and face-planted on the moon.
The collision disrupted the moon’s rotation rate, immediately slowing it to more than 30 hours per pirouette. Such rapid braking stretched and deformed the moon’s crust, flattening its poles and pinching the ridge around its middle, Tobie demonstrated in a 3-D simulation. “It is possible for a single impact to change the rotation of Iapetus,” he said, noting a 500-mile-wide crater that could be a scar left over from the collision. “We can generate a ridge only if the body rotates very, very fast initially.”
While the theory is intriguing, some scientists at the presentation were skeptical, suggesting that it might not be as easy to despin the moon as suggested, and that the simulation may not have gotten Iapetus’ interior quite right. Another persistent mystery is the fact that the ridge isn’t wrapped all the way around the moon.
Like the rest of the theories, this newest idea can’t answer those questions, yet.
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 9 December 2012 03:56 (5 months ago) Permalink
We got space rivers
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 22:17 (5 months ago) Permalink
Not sure where else to put this, but here's a 25-minute tour of the international space station hosted by astronaut Sunita Williams.
http://kottke.org/13/01/a-tour-of-the-international-space-station
― nickn, Sunday, 6 January 2013 04:15 (4 months ago) Permalink
NASA Probe Observes Meteors Colliding with Saturn's Rings
― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 2 May 2013 18:53 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
Dear god I love this kind of stuff.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 2 May 2013 20:08 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
would have been cooler if they had caught a meteor colliding with the rings around uranus
― 乒乓, Thursday, 2 May 2013 20:57 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
New pictures of the hexagon and the hexagon's eye.
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 15 May 2013 06:09 (5 days ago) Permalink