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Do not Adjust Your Screen: Image from Cassini's Dione flyby
SpaceRef ^ | 10/12/2005 | NASA

Posted on 10/14/2005 10:00:22 AM PDT by cogitator

A bigger image is available at the link.



TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Astronomy; Education; Miscellaneous; Outdoors; Science
KEYWORDS: cassini; dione; flyby; moon; rings; saturn
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Not as weird-looking as Hyperion, but an impressive montage.
1 posted on 10/14/2005 10:00:38 AM PDT by cogitator
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To: 2Trievers; headsonpikes; Pokey78; Lil'freeper; epsjr; sauropod; kayak; Miss Marple; CPT Clay; ...

I hope you don't mind an occasional astro-geology image.


2 posted on 10/14/2005 10:03:30 AM PDT by cogitator
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To: cogitator

Chesley Bonestell, please call the office!


3 posted on 10/14/2005 10:03:30 AM PDT by Grut
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To: cogitator; RadioAstronomer; petuniasevan

Insanely kewl.


4 posted on 10/14/2005 10:07:48 AM PDT by martin_fierro (Late-To-The-Party Marty)
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To: cogitator

Oh, that's so fake! Can't ya see the wire?!!



/sarc


5 posted on 10/14/2005 10:13:37 AM PDT by rockrr (Never argue with a man who buys ammo in bulk...)
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To: cogitator

Oooooh purty!


6 posted on 10/14/2005 10:28:19 AM PDT by Lil'freeper
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To: Grut
Chesley Bonestell, please call the office!

I've seen about 20-30 images from Cassini (and a few from Galileo) that reminded me of ol' Chesley.

7 posted on 10/14/2005 10:28:22 AM PDT by cogitator
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To: cogitator

WOW!!!!!!


8 posted on 10/14/2005 10:54:19 AM PDT by Professional Engineer (Yes, the world does revolve around us. We picked the coordinate system.)
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To: cogitator

BREATHTAKING! Thanks for the post!


9 posted on 10/14/2005 10:55:14 AM PDT by cgk (Bennett: If we are surrounded by the trivial & vicious, it is all too easy to make our peace with it)
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To: cogitator

This is un...freakin'...believable!!!! Thanks.


10 posted on 10/14/2005 10:56:20 AM PDT by geezerwheezer (get up boys, we're burnin' daylight!!!)
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To: cogitator; Two Thirds Vote Aye

Just incredible!


11 posted on 10/14/2005 11:56:18 AM PDT by kayak (Proud monthly donor and Dollar-a-Day FReeper. You can be one, too.)
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To: cogitator; TxBec; WhyisaTexasgirlinPA; secret garden
It always amazes me how sharp and distinct (narrow!) the rings are.

Funny too, in all of the 50's and 60's science fiction stories, rings would be drawn around one planet (never two or three!) on the cover of "foreign" solar systems.

But NO ONE EVER assumed rings would be found on several different planets in our own solar system.
12 posted on 10/14/2005 12:07:59 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (-I contribute to FR monthly, but ABBCNNBCBS supports Hillary's Secular Sexual Socialism every day.)
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE
It always amazes me how sharp and distinct (narrow!) the rings are.

There must be some high-mathematical orbital dynamics reason for that, but yes, they must be only a few km wide.

Have you seen Cassini pictures of the moonlets that make the gaps in the rings? There's one (and a movie) that shows waves in the rings created by the moon as it goes by. Wild.

13 posted on 10/14/2005 12:33:51 PM PDT by cogitator
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To: cogitator

For a few, not even kilometers thick.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Saturn&Display=Rings
Others are thicker: probably due to the moons being closer.

Ring Name: D
Distance*: 68,000 km
Width: 8,500 km

Ring Name: C
Distance*: 74,500 km
Width: 17,500 km
Mass: 1.1 x 1021 kg
Albedo: 0.1-0.3

Ring Name: B
Distance*: 92,000 km
Width: 25,500 km
Thickness: 0.1 km - 1 km
Mass: 2.8 x 1022 kg
Albedo: 0.4-0.6

Ring Name: Cassini Division
Distance*: 117,500 km
Width: 4,700 km
Mass: 5.7 x 1017 kg
Albedo: 0.2-0.4

Ring Name: A
Distance*: 122,200 km
Width: 14,600 km
Thickness: 0.1 km - 1 km
Mass: 6.2 x 1021 kg
Albedo: 0.4-0.6

Ring Name: F
Distance*: 140,210 km
Width: 30 km - 500 km
Albedo: 0.6

Ring Name: G
Distance*: 165,800 km
Width: 8,000 km
Thickness: 100 km - 1,000 km
Mass: 1 x 1017 kg

Ring Name: E
Distance*: 180,000 km
Width: 300,000 km
Thickness: 1,000 km - 30,000 km
Mass: 7 x 108 kg

* The distance is measured from the planet center to the start of the ring.


14 posted on 10/14/2005 12:46:49 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (-I contribute to FR monthly, but ABBCNNBCBS supports Hillary's Secular Sexual Socialism every day.)
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To: rockrr

HOAX! If they are in space, why no stars?! /sarc


15 posted on 10/14/2005 4:50:00 PM PDT by opticks
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE

Fascinating picture Robert.


16 posted on 10/14/2005 5:23:12 PM PDT by secret garden (<= easily amused)
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To: cogitator

Fantastic.


17 posted on 10/14/2005 8:27:08 PM PDT by Soaring Feather (If down is up, is up, down. Feathers in the wind.)
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To: kayak

Hi kay! Isn't it though! Hard to believe we are seeing this!


18 posted on 10/15/2005 3:56:40 AM PDT by Two Thirds Vote Aye (9/11/2001 - The greatest clxxxon legacy to date.)
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To: Swordmaker

ping!


19 posted on 10/15/2005 9:56:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Down with Dhimmicrats! I last updated by FR profile on Sunday, August 14, 2005.)
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To: 2Trievers; headsonpikes; Pokey78; Lil'freeper; epsjr; sauropod; kayak; Miss Marple; CPT Clay; ...
I just wanted to alert all of you who corresponded on this thread that JPL has a color version of the picture and a small and large Quicktime movie of the flyby.

Multimedia - Images - Moons - Dione

Ice Moon Rendesvous (Videos)

They've also got this shot that I first saw in the video, of Dione with Saturn lurking in the background:


20 posted on 10/18/2005 8:22:13 AM PDT by cogitator
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