Sigh. A very, very cool image of Saturn’s rings came out, and I was prepared to do all sorts of analysis and math to show you just how cool it is, but then my Secret Identity life kicked in, and I got delayed. Such is life. So now I will instead send you to Emily’s place to let her tell the tale of the incredible image. But since I posted the images on Flickr anyway, let me at least show you them, and tease you about what you’re seeing:
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[Click to embiggen and get to the Cassini raw image...]
This is a view from Cassini of Saturn’s rings. The long shadow is being cast on the rings by the moon Mimas, which is well outside the field of view of this image. But if you look closely at the rings, other shadows are to be seen…
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What’s causing all those jagged shadows? Ah, well, again I’ll let Emily tell the tale. Let me say it again: you really want to read what she wrote. It’s amazing!
Tip o’ the Whipple Shield to Nancy Atkinson at Universe Today and the folks at Unmanned Spaceflight who originally spotted this!
April 14th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I’m going to guess before I read the link: Large, uneven rocks and ice chunks in the ring casting shadows?
April 14th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
So, I was kinda right, but I grossly simplified… Oh well… Read the link! Fascinating!
April 14th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I saw this at Universe Today last Sunday and I pointed out to Nancy that she had got her “its” confused with it’s.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Looks like an audio trace. Wonder what it says…
All These Worlds Are Yours, Except Europa. Attempt No Landing There.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Either that, or:
Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down …
April 14th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Every time I look at Saturn’s rings, I want to listen to the vinyl record it looks like. Instead I end up playing NASA’s “sounds of Jupiter” from the Galileo probe, etc.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Dp the rings are lumpy like mashed a-taters!
April 14th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
“so”, not “dp”.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
What the fudge, man. The solar system just gets realer and realer every day. I’m freakin’ out.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
“Looks like an audio trace. Wonder what it says…”
I buried Paul?
April 15th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Looks like an audio trace. Wonder what it says…
Sounds from Saturn.
Actual sounds as picked up by Cassini.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:38 am
That’s beautiful — makes me appreciate just how large everything can be.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Looks like an audio trace. Wonder what it says…
“We apologize for the inconvenience.”
April 15th, 2009 at 9:48 am
We spotted this at CICLOPS last week and we’ve been busily working on getting this released. We should have a decent explanation for what we’re seeing when the release hits, as well as much cleaner, higher resolution views. Stay tuned…
April 15th, 2009 at 11:56 am
I saw the other image today, the one on APOD (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090415.html) and the first thing that struck me was that it has a dust donut on it (top right quadrant).
I think I’ve spent too much time imaging lately
April 19th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Looking at the enlargement, (and without the benefit of the link to Emily – I cannot make it load, (anybody else?)), I suggest the “jaggies” to be larger chunks of moon building material, or maybe chunks from a moon “un-building”. They appear to be vertically aligned, relative to the poles, as being long chunks, and needing to occupy minimum space in their orbit, are sorted with the shortest dimensions touching, and actually grinding away with each other, creating dust. The fact that their shadows are “peaky” is a manifestation of that alignment, and they are shown on the relatively flat background adjacent.
I’ve just had another thought. I wonder if one could actually walk all the way around Saturn, on the “ring”, as it is essentially solid? Bit of a long stroll though. Also could be like stepping from one surfboard to another, and another, etc., not the most stable of platforms to stand on.
Enough conjecturing.
Ivan.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
IVAN3MAN Says:
Sounds from Saturn.
Sounds like the ‘electronic tonalities’ by Louis and Bebe Baron from Forbidden Planet!
They musta been psychic!
J/P=?
April 19th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Yikes, I have just managed to load the other link, (the first one), and I am utterly surprised to see I have more or less coincided with her assessment, even down to wondering about an astronaut being able to walk from chunk-to-chunk in that ring. She did the maths on it though, and obviously some of those chunks would be “mountains”, others would be much smaller.
As these chunks would be orbiting, can somebody estimate the time it takes to complete an orbit? And is that “year” constant for ALL ring matter, despite being in an inner ring or an outer one?
In other words, is the ring system largely homogenous?
Ivan.
April 19th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Sorry, I should have acknowledged Emily, instead of using those (im-)personal pronouns, a feature I don’t like when I encounter it in News and Current Affairs programs, where editors remove sentences that contain identifying information, to facilitate time and/or space considerations. So I too am guilty.
I echo Phil here and encourage others to visit Emily’s site. She has the goods!
Ivan.