I’ll be glad to new ideas and explanations, thank you!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(spacecraft)

& for more on the Jupiter atmospheric entry capsule which accompanied and formed part of the Galileo spacecraft which entered the Jovian atmosphere in December 1995 and was :

“…by far the most difficult atmospheric entry ever attempted; the probe had to withstand 230 G and the probe’s 152 kg heat shield [which] made up almost half of the probe’s total mass, … lost 80 kg during the entry.”

See :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(spacecraft)#Galileo.27s_atmospheric_entry_probe

which is also my source for the above quote.

Talking of Rhea, have there been any more results about its possible ring system? IIRC, apart from the magnetometer measurements that suggested the existence of a ring system in the first place, there is evidence in the form a band of ultraviolet-bright material along Rhea’s equator that may be the result of ring material colliding with the moon. Anything else?

Good question – but one I’m afraid I can’t really answer other than saying I haven’t heard any more about it.

I second you asking it though & hope to find out the answer myself! Have any follow up studies – or better still images – of Rhea’s rings being taken or are any planned to be?

@ 6. ByJove Says:

I trust the space science community has gotten the message “Pictures are good! People like pictures! Pictures get us funding!” And will therefore have at least a modest camera on virtually everything launched from now on, even if the primary mission doesn’t really need it.

Yes indeed. I think there’ve been a few missed opportunities in this regard with probes that should’ve had cameras on them but didn’t. For example, the long running and remarkable if unheralded Ulysses mission which got a very different angle on the solar system and our Sun especially its polar regions and also the capsule Galileo dropped into Jupiter. I’d have loved to seen what a plunge into that largest of our systems planets really looks like & we could’ve seen that back in the 1990′s. What could’ve been. Sigh.

Can we move there? Its starting to look cleaner and more inviting than here.

Yes but it’s a lot colder and there’s just no atmosphere!

@ 5. TKoz Says:

That’s no moon. That’s a space station!

No, right first time, it *is* just a moon. We think! If not its very well disguised.

Silly! Don’t you remember the sea of hydrocarbons in the Gulf of Mex– I mean, Titan?

Uh-oh. Being greco-geeky again.