I’ve been posting a lot about antiscience crackpots and the damage they do, and while it’s important, it gets irritating to have to do it. After the site Boing Boing has to post something atrocious, they post a unicorn story or picture to cleanse the brain’s palate.
So here is my version of a unicorn: a soothing picture of Saturn from Cassini.
This is another in the series of beautiful equinox images from Cassini, as the Sun shines straight along the rings. While the icy moon Enceladus is not in the picture itself, you can see its shadow just below the shadow of the rings on Saturn’s cloudtops. The moon you can see in the image, just below the rings, is Mimas.
So, take a deep breath… remember that reality is real… and that we can investigate it, examine it, learn from it, and drink deeply of its beauty.
Ahhhhhhhh. That’s better.
September 25th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Thanks Phil!
That does calm me down after finding that Neil Armstrong isn’t enough of a scientist to be mentioned in Texas history books.
Tom
September 25th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
“The magnificent! It soothes” (Need a graphic here.)
September 25th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
You know what’s also calming? Seeing Buzz Aldrin punch Bart Sibrel in the face. I know it’s old news, but it’s really a satisfying sight.
September 25th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Whoa… Saturn is always just so dang purdy.
September 25th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
So when are we next going to send a spacecraft to visit Uranus or Neptune? 22nd century? 23rd?
September 25th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Sigh.. I could stare at Saturn or Jupiter all night.
September 25th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
There was a news story on TV a couple years ago that mentioned Enceladus’ geysers and my wife & daughters were watching. I got to say to Victoria (my version of T.L.A.) “That’s Enceladus! We’ve seen that!” It’s kinda comforting to be that familiar with our universe. All you BAblogees should take the time to look at Saturn, Jupiter and the other planets and get acquainted with their moons.
September 25th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Seeing Saturn through the eyepiece of a telescope is always a wonderful sight too!
September 25th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
[...] A fresh breath of Saturn | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine [...]
September 25th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
For Tom above – perhaps Armstrong isn’t in the list of Texas scientists because he’s from OHIO? And he also got out of Texas when he left NASA.
September 25th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
@#10 John- I’m not so sure it is books on the history of Texas that Tom is referring to, but rather books of History in Texas.
Or maybe you’ve realized that and the sarcasm has breezed right over my head.
September 26th, 2009 at 12:47 am
Magnificent!
September 26th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Interesting! I enjoyed your post.
September 26th, 2009 at 5:51 am
I thought this was supposed to be an Astronomy blog! (ducks, runs away….)
Seriously – beautiful. We are so lucky to have such a planet to view in our night sky.
September 26th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Cassini, the poet of the skies, just keeps delivering. If anyone wants to talk about spirituality in the sense that Carl Sagan did, this would be it. The hard work and dedication that creates these magnificent images reminds me of the good aspects of humanity and that we really are a small dot in the universe; we seek to know and this is our reward. And yes, Saturn is real…so very real.
Thanks.
September 26th, 2009 at 11:54 am
#3: Bart Sibrel’s crackpot theory can be refuted by bouncing a laser beam off any of the retroreflectors left at the moon landing sites and detecting the reflected light, of course. But most of your readers know that…
Incidentally, Neil Armstrong, who is from Wapakoneta Ohio, got his engineering degree at Purdue University in Indiana, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Purdue a few months after returning from the Moon. I was a Purdue undergrad in those days, saw the first landing on the Moon on TV, and later attended Neil’s award ceremony at Purdue. I hope to see a return of astronauts to the Moon again (and with luck, Mars) during my lifetime.
About the retroreflectors and what scientists are doing with them now:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/21jul_llr.htm
September 26th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
. . . aaannd exhale slowly . . . wwhhooooooooo . . .
Oh yes. That’s better. It’s hard to beat the feeling of one’s frontal lobes coming back on line.
Thanks, Phil!
September 26th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Funny, I don’t find that saturnine at all.
OOooomm…
[No, I don't meditate. Waste of time, research says 15 min sleep and dream activation will give the same effect and rest the body and increase lifetime. Without the woo doo. Win-win-major-win-and-win.
But I don't think Phil would appreciate if my reaction was:
ZZzzzzz...]
September 26th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
[...] CICLOPS [Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations] Categorías:Ciencia, Fotografía Digital Etiquetas:Ciencia, Espacio, Fotografía Digital, NASA Comentarios (0) Trackbacks (0) Deja un comentario Trackbacks [...]
September 26th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
[...] Phil Plait points us in the direction of a stunning photo of Saturn… [...]
September 27th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Curiously, the shadow of the rings is tangent to the shadow of Mimas. In comparison the shadow of Mimas seems to be 3 (?) times as wide as the thickness of the ring shadow, but the rings are a few tens of meters thick and Mimas’ diameter is slightly less than 400 km., a ten to the fourth power ratio, not 3x. So what gives?
September 28th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Correction: the shadow is of Enceladus, diameter 504 km. The question is still the same.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I really like the effect of the rings darkening as they get “closer”, to the point that the look darker in front Saturn than they do behind it. Stunning…
September 29th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I have two questions that probably someone here can answer.
1) Given that the rings are so thin in height, is there really a visible line of shadow on Saturn when the rings are 90 degress to the incoming sunlight? I always see a shadow line in pictures, and I am wondering if that is because the pictures are not at the exact moment of 90 degreeness (or some word like that).
2) The shadow of Enceladus appears a little stretched in the picture above. Is that most likely because it is to the front left and almost tangent to the cloud surface of Saturn?
Thanks for any answers.