Cassini beginning flybys of Enceladus

[lajoswinkler]

Holy cow, look at all this ionizing radiation.

[KerikBalm]

I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing there

Are the light streaks and dots from energetic particles hitting the detector?

The black bars?

[Camacha]

Space is hostile, images like these emphasize that pretty well.

Also, I'm struggling to understand what this is. It said it was taken October 28th, however the target is "UNK" (unknown). Also don't understand why, despite being raw, it's not at full 1024x1024 resolution.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS91/W00094892.jpg

I am not sure what we are looking at there, but my best guess would be that it is an area of something that partially vaporized and outgassed.

Edit: I just read back my own post for the second time. "an area of something" sounds like a wonderful space euphemism for we really have no clue what this is

Edited October 30, 2015 by Camacha

[lajoswinkler]

I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing there

Are the light streaks and dots from energetic particles hitting the detector?

The black bars?

The streaks are ionizing ray collisions with the detector, yes. Enceladus is very close to Saturn and a human being on its surface would probably die in a day or so. I'll try to obtain some solid data, but it's pretty obvious that its proximity to Saturn turns out to be very hostile.

Black bars like these usually appear at images retrieved from probes. I'd say missing data.

Also, these slick things look very icy.

Enceladus has been farting for a long time.

Edited October 30, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[klesh]

Shouldn't we have some more pictures by now? I'm not seeing any new ones on NASA's site. :-/

[Frida Space]

Shouldn't we have some more pictures by now? I'm not seeing any new ones on NASA's site. :-/

I think the focus of this flyby was on the chemistry more than on the images. Cassini has flown above the same region (south pole) many times and even at much lower altitudes, I don't think that further mapping of the region is more valuable than assessing the hydrotermal activity on the seafloor. But I could well be wrong, there could still be some images that haven't made their way to the raw image website yet.

[fredinno]

I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing there

Are the light streaks and dots from energetic particles hitting the detector?

The black bars?

It's the Death Star V3.0 being forged from Enceledous for the new Star Wars Movie.

[lajoswinkler]

I think the focus of this flyby was on the chemistry more than on the images. Cassini has flown above the same region (south pole) many times and even at much lower altitudes, I don't think that further mapping of the region is more valuable than assessing the hydrotermal activity on the seafloor. But I could well be wrong, there could still be some images that haven't made their way to the raw image website yet.

AFAIK this is the lowest flyby ever.

[Frida Space]

AFAIK this is the lowest flyby ever.

In 2008 it came 15.5 miles from the surface, but not through a plume.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/flybys/enceladus20081009/

- - - Updated - - -

(it actually did go through a plume during that flyby, however when it crossed the plume it was flying much higher. When it reached its closest point to the surface, 15.5 miles, it wasn't inside a plume).

[lajoswinkler]

Indeed, sadly I didn't see any images. I think the flyby's task was primarily to take some measurements.

[PB666]

http://phys.org/news/2015-11-cassini-monstrous-ice-cloud-titan.html

mods can create a new thread if they like.

[lajoswinkler]

Space boobie.

[PB666]

Space boobie.

http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/2015/nasascassini.jpg

See, you are talking to a bunch of space geeks, the inference went over their heads, if you want to stir up some interest just say the Vogon construction fleet is practicing, 300 gigaton phase-shifted anti-matter device was dropped to examine for atmospheric effects. I thought i saw a few dolphins jump out of the way. Oh that and the vogons were practicing to see if the could make a space booby.

[note a few are probably brain stuck on trying to figure out if temporal phase shifting can actually work and what effect it might have on antimatter, the other few are probably stuck trying to figure out if 300 gigaton tnt equivilent would suffice to make a gas emmision that large, a a few others would be wondering if a point antimatter explosion in one spot might suffice to split titan in half]

[justidutch]

Speculation that Enceladus will become a tourism hotspot… http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34963515

[PB666]

Not a chance, round trip of fourteen years in a spce ship the size of a restroom, you're not going to find alot people with the money to pay, but who are dumb enough not that this would be a prison sentence. They might gift the trip to thier mother in law. 

[Mitchz95]

37 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Not a chance, round trip of fourteen years in a spce ship the size of a restroom, you're not going to find alot people with the money to pay, but who are dumb enough not that this would be a prison sentence. They might gift the trip to thier mother in law. 

Give it a couple of centuries.