Titan: The New World"The rings are no older than about a few hundred million years. They're young. They are basically geologically young," says Porco. "It means that rings, Saturn's rings, were not in there in the early days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth... [made of] Billions and billions of particles. Countless numbers of particles. Varying ice particles. Varying size from the sizes of houses, large houses or small apartment buildings, down to the sizes of stones and pebbles," says Porco. "And although they're screaming around Saturn at speeds of 40,000 miles an hour, they are very gently jostling each other. They are the delicate wreckage of a moon, or maybe a comet that was ripped apart and captured by Saturn's gravity. Being in charge gives her the privilege of naming the pictures. "Ring World Waiting" was taken more than 17 million miles away. "Side Swiping Saturn" is a view of the seemingly paper-thin ring level view. And "Nature's Canvas" captures Saturn's tiny moon, Mimas. Cassini has discovered three new moons. Now Saturn has 34.
CBS Worldwide Inc
Jan. 19, 2005
FR Lexicon·Posting Guidelines·Excerpt, or Link only?·Ultimate Sidebar Management·Headlines
Donate Here By Secure Server·Eating our own -- Time to make a new start in Free Republic
PDF to HTML translation·Translation page·Wayback Machine·My Links·FreeMail Me
Gods, Graves, Glyphs topic·and group·Books, Magazines, Movies, Music