Comments on: Saturn’s rings cast long shadows

By: Saturn! « Bright Umbra

Saturn! « Bright Umbra — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:04:45 +0000

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By: Maria

Maria — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:28:01 +0000

Mmm. Daily dose of space porn a go go!

By: troy

troy — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:32:20 +0000

Phil,

Can you really, and I mean, REALLY, tell us that Saturn’s rings cast long shadows, and then not actually tell us the length of the shadow cast? I mean, how are we truly supposed to be, er, astoundinated?

Troy

By: flip

flip — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:26:50 +0000

Gorgeous image. This makes my day

By: DennyMo

DennyMo — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:10:45 +0000

Nice pic, but I really posted here to express my surprise that BA hasn’t said anything yet about this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics.

I just finished reading “Death From The Skies” over the weekend, then heard the reports this morning on the Nobel, I can’t help wondering: what is the universe expanding into? I’m sure it’s a bad analogy, but if I blow up a balloon, it displaces the air as it expands. Is the universe displacing anything as it expands?

By: jennyxyzzy

jennyxyzzy — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:05:19 +0000

Does anyone know if we have ever managed to get pictures from inside the… um is ‘orbit’ the right word?… of the rings? I don’t remember Cassini getting that close to Saturn, at least not yet (it’s planned for the end of the mission though isn’t it?), but maybe one of the Voyager spacecraft did?

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 06:51:54 +0000

Beautiful post. Can’t get enough Saturn.

By: RECMSOJ

RECMSOJ — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 04:16:02 +0000

How thick are the rings, Phil?

By: John

John — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:43:11 +0000

I would think chaos theory would have application here…you’re not really trying to describe each individual ring particle’s position, motion, etc….more like averaging out enough samples to provide good predictions…maybe like what the quantum folks do to figure out the probability of where an electron is MOST LIKELY to be at a given time…

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:38:18 +0000

Wow. Thankyou Cassini and BA. Love this image.

@1. TT : “You do know that those aren’t actual words you’re using in the [Click to ...] line, right? Right?”

Not been here long then I take it TT?

Yes, the Bad Astronomer (BA) knows and so do the rest of it – its one of the quirky traditions of this blog and its been mentioned before many times and, like it or loathe it, he ain’t changing it.

By: Wzrd1

Wzrd1 — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:18:40 +0000

@Rick #7, isn’t EVERYTHING fluid mechanics, at the end of the day? When one has gasses of different thermal and density characteristics, they behave like fluids. Plasmas behave like fluids, when in a mass.
So, in essence, one need only calculate stream based and vortices, plus the shepherding moons.
THAT said, I’m QUITE sure that high fidelity modelling would challenge our best clustered supercomputer.

THAT all said, I’m trying to figure out WHY the rings shadows line up precisely like the UPC code for my can of split pea soup!

By: Pete Jackson

Pete Jackson — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:13:37 +0000

@4drbubbles: Any astronauts in the shadow of the rings would still see the sun for the most part. The A ring (outside the Cassini division) is relatively transparent, as is the inner part of the B ring. The darkest is the outer part of the B ring, inside of the Cassini division. Download the image and tinker with the brightness/contrast to see this.

But for all those in the dark, think of the dazzling light impinging on the northern hemisphere, getting direct sunlight as well as all the light reflected from the rings! It must be positively balmy up there!

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 01:59:32 +0000

My new desktop image.

Cassini never fails to deliver the shear awesome that is Saturn.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:40:06 +0000

I wonder how good our computer models of ring systems are. We obviously can’t keep track of every particle, so it has to be approached more like a fluid mechanics model, with bulk properties rather than point masses.

Based on what I’ve seen of the Cassini photographs, I bet we can’t come close to the complexity of the real thing.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:35:24 +0000

At least he didn’t say “infundibulate.”

By: David C.

David C. — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:52:26 +0000

it is perfectly ligit that Phil change the “English” language, we never owned it in the first place; he is following in the footsteps of our greatest writer, Shakespeare, amongst (there is a good old English word gone out of fashion) hundreds of others; if not thousands around the world; go for it Phil google “the empire writes back” for an exhaustive treatment on the subject in the present day;

By: drbubbles

drbubbles — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:37:57 +0000

So, those poor clouds on the polar edge of the widest shadow: how long before they see the sun again?

By: Wzrd1

Wzrd1 — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:00:02 +0000

My wife wanted to know, what song is played when you put the needle in those grooves?

By: ruidh

ruidh — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 22:28:41 +0000

Why, they are perfectly cromulent words.

By: TT

TT — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 22:26:02 +0000

You do know that those aren’t actual words you’re using in the [Click to ...] line, right?

Right?