Comments on: A trillion and five moons

By: Rolf Wucherer

Rolf Wucherer — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:53:55 +0000

Beautiful! Some day Cassini will run out of juice and, I guess, go into permanent orbit around Saturn. I suggest we make it an honorary moon! It, too, is not large enough to crush itself into a sphere, but we may be able to pinpoint its orbit. We could call it… Cassini!

By: Running rings around the competition « unbound page

Running rings around the competition « unbound page — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:34:43 +0000

[...] blame Phil Plait. His blog is an unending stream of pretty space pictures, and he’s been getting a little [...]

By: Keith Bowden

Keith Bowden — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:57:28 +0000

It never ceases to amaze me that no matter the resolution, or how close Cassini gets, the rings always seem both impossibly solid (though somewhat transparent) and impossibly thin. There never seems to be any area that’s thinner/thicker than the surrounding areas of rings, nor do they ever seem to resolve into individual fragments, a la the CGI in the opening credits on Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Or have I missed these photos?)

Beautiful stuff.

By: Gus

Gus — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:07:57 +0000

How long did the “window” last for Cassini to take this picture?

By: En la luna - Esceptica

En la luna - Esceptica — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:12:52 +0000

[...] imagen de lunas de Saturno (Via BadAstronomy) De izquierda a derecha, Janus, Pandora (en los anillos), Encélado, Mimas y Rea. Puedes ver la [...]

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:09:44 +0000

@2. Becca Stareyes : Thanks.

@9. Crux Australis & Jim Craig : Aptly enough Rhea the big moon in question is also thought to have rings itself :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Rhea

http://www.space.com/5051-saturn-moon-rings.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7p9A3Gnwug&NR=1

@5. Mark : “I can’t wait until we’re seeing images like this of the Jovian system. Amazing!”

Did you miss the images from when they had the Galileo spaceprobe orbiting Jove then? Some of those were marvellous too.

By: Jim Craig

Jim Craig — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:32:09 +0000

Crux Australis, you and me both! Glad to see I wasn’t the only one.

By: Crux Australis

Crux Australis — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:25:52 +0000

At first, I counted only 4 moons; then I realized that big one on the right isn’t Saturn!

By: Neil NZ

Neil NZ — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:02:38 +0000

Is Cassini likely to be funded beyond 2017? If not, what will happen to it when the funds dry up?

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:37:51 +0000

Given that the rings are relatively thin, would it be possible to swing Cassini very close to them in order to observe moonlets up close? Perhaps in the late stages of Cassini’s mission?