News Briefs: Astronomy, Astophysics & Space Exploration

A well known polymath whose published works range far and wide, including (but not limited to) Archaeology, Paleontology, Astronomy, Space Propulsion systems, and Science Fiction.

Official Website: http://www.charlespellegrino.com

Moderators: Mr. Titanic, Charlie P., ed_the_engineer

Darb
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Post by Darb »

I looked at the animated version, and since that dot only seems to appear in one frame, rather than moving in some sort of orbital curve, it might be reasonable to assume that it's a star peeking through from behind the rings. Saturn and Cassini are both on the move, so the stars in the background are moving too - but not along the curve of the rings.

In any case, I'm just an internet surfer like you - that's probably a question best directed to the team analyzing the photos. They DO have an e-mail address posted on the NASA website for such things.
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Post by Darb »

Here's the latest attempt on the Ansari X Prize

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996463
Last edited by Darb on Wed Sep 29, 2004 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Echus Cthulhu Mythos »

Argh, not another New York Times link! :P
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Post by Darb »

Ok, I replaced the link with one to New Scientist, happy now ? :P

p.s. Thx for reminding me.
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Post by Echus Cthulhu Mythos »

Cheers. :)

That is exciting!
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Post by Echus Cthulhu Mythos »

Formation of a space tourism company - Virgin Galatic

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/ ... lactic.htm
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Post by Darb »

Anyone catch "Black Sky" on the Discovery Channel ?

It's all about the building, testing and flying of this plane. Very cool. That "feather mode" trick they use at apogee is really COOL.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/ra ... space.html

It re-airs today, 9am-2:30 pm est, if I recall, and an update will be aired 10/7 (Thurs) 9pm EST.
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Post by Echus Cthulhu Mythos »

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996487

Successful 2nd flight of SpaceShipOne!

Woohoo!
The X-prize is theirs.
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Post by Darb »

See my post above about thursday nite's "update" airing ... it will cover the most recent (and successful) attempt.
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Post by Jenab »

Brad wrote:More pics from Cassini are up, including:

* Mimas (the giant crater makes it looks like "The Death Star" of Star Wars ... somewhat similar to Jupiter's Miranda)
* Dione
* Lapetus
* Tethys
* Enceladus
* Titan

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassi ... index.html
I think Lapetus should be Iapetus.

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Post by Echus Cthulhu Mythos »

Martian Methane

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articl ... sc=I100322

[Edit] Did you know that you spelt Astro wrong in the title of this thread... I just noticed. :mrgreen:
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Post by Darb »

Yes, it's a very exciting finding, for both Mars anf Titan ... Charlie Pellegrino was very animated about it when we met a few weeks back for lunch.
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Post by Darb »

Tonite, at 8pm EST, PBS's "NOVA" will air "Welcome to Mars" - a recap of the results and images gathered thus far by the two Martian Rovers.

I'm definitely watching it ! :thumb:
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Post by Echus Cthulhu Mythos »

Could you record it for me?
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Post by Darb »

I assume that was a rhetorical question ? :wink:
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Post by Darb »

The Nova special on Mars last night was very good ... although I was hoping it'd include some of the more recent material. It only seemed current with stuff up until a few months ago.
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Post by Echus Cthulhu Mythos »

I was being half-serious when I asked you to record it. :mrgreen:
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Post by Darb »

Saturn fly update ...

NOTE: after clicking on the link, hold your mouse over the image until an expand/contract icon appears ... click on it to zoom in further.
Dear John [Bachelor, of 770 am Radio], 11-Mar-2005:

Very much distracted this week with two of the most beautiful women I've ever met: Their names, Enceladus and Cassini.

Go to N0003oo87.jpg (150k) and N00030070.jpg (150k), for example (on the raw image Cassini home page). Those "toothpaste extrusions" I wrote about after the Voyager fly-bys (RE, Pellegrino and Stoff, Darwin's Universe) are, like Titan, everything I hoped for and more. These are extrusions through ice, of plastic-like consistency, that came through the floors of deep-penetrating crater events (3 miles or more). The ice squeezed up much like the toothpaste lava formations in deep-ocean spreading zones on Earth - and then hardened. To judge from the very reworked terrain and the cleaning away of small craters, these extrusions occurred while dinosaurs were still roaming across Pennsylvania - which is to say, only a geologic fortnight ago... meaning that such recent activity should not have stopped. These extrusions would be good places to send robot probes, melting through and looking for fossils.

And here's the best: In N00030087, go to the toothpaste extrusion (the positive feature in the crater) in the lower left. Clearly this extrusion became cryo-volcanic. Absolutely beautiful. I had forgotten even to be looking for this when I found it - - but, of course, Enceladus has the purest white surface in the solar system (the highest albedo, as reflective of sunlight as fresh-fallen snow); and she orbits within Saturn's most tenuous and outermost ring - - a torus of ionized water-ice. (It's obvious, in 20-20 hindsight.) It seems the little moon, whose diameter would fit within the wide borders of Pennsylvania, has been erupting snowstorms into space. I'd say we can confirm now, to a near-certainty, another new ocean. See also, for a well-lighted angle on the ice volcano, just top left of center in N00030070. That's not a crater form on the peak: It's a very familiar caldera form - rith rivulet breaches.

I've got a rather busy schedule this week, so we'll have to work out a link-up sort of on the run. But I'm about as happy as a surf clam at high tide (pun and imagery intended). As the rest of Enceladus is imaged, we're sure to see more features of this sort. This is amazing. A more amazing solar system than I think any of us dreamed as kids.

- - Charlie P.
Dear Brad,

There are a lot of interesting shots - and if you add them, I'll provide captions. For sheer haunting beauty go to N00029883 - Enceladus passing above Saturn's rings seen edge-on.

There are almost certainly other volcanoes on Enceladus. If you read DUST, I had a scene of the Darwin robots descending past cryo-volcanic snowstorms on Enceladus. Stoff and I first predicted the Enceladan volcanic breaches from Voyager data, as published in Darwin's Universe, 1983. Since it's erupting water - - well, it's water: They've got to name it Pellegrino. Strange homage to the side of the family that has owned the springs for more than 2000 years - and which disowned us more than a century ago.

See you later -
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Post by Darb »

Dear Brad:

I have to be out of town next 48 - 72 hours. Remind me Thursday to send [additional] captions [for other fascinating Cassini raw images]. Internet linkage will be patchy till then. See you later,

- - Charlie P.
EDIT: words in brackets added, for clarity. -- Brad
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Post by Darb »

Mount Pellegrino on Enceladus ?
Charlie Pellegrino wrote:Dear Brad:

I had sent my E-mail about Enceladus volcano around, last week (you received a copy) and I was shocked to learn tonight that not only has no one at JPL picked up my note this very busy week - but no one has noticed the hydro-volcanic mound in the Enceladus fly-by photos {EDIT: click on N00030070 & N0003oo87.jpg. -- Brad}. Everyone was looking at the smooth fields, the cat scratches and the ruptures. I did an interview tonight and I just could not believe it. They're looking for physical evidence of micro-geyzers and missing a mountain over two miles across and a mile high. It's not that it's not there, and easy to see, with features more obvious than your big toe. It's that nobody sees it yet. The funny thing is that the big news is all the ionized oxygen in the Enceladan "atmosphere," - which means that venting of water is coming from somewhere. (To me, the bigger news is that the dissociated water and the resulting oxygen rich surface ice in subduction zones means that free oxygen must be getting subducted down into the subsurface oceans. That's like rocket fuel for biology - - meaning that bacterial Consortia, if such exist, can make the leap from rusticles to, say, squid-like thingies.)

- - Charlie P.

P.S. Did you post my Enceladus letter. If so, please make sure to include the date I sent it. It's sure to be named Mount Pellegrino now - - I want that name because it's a water volcano, and I do drink Pellegrino water, even though my side of the family was disowned by them and banished from Naples over a century ago. No hard feelings. :wink:
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Post by Bozola »

Brad wrote:Mount Pellegrino on Enceladus ?
Charlie Pellegrino wrote:Dear Brad:

I had sent my E-mail about Enceladus volcano around, last week (you received a copy) and I was shocked to learn tonight that not only has no one at JPL picked up my note this very busy week - but no one has noticed the hydro-volcanic mound in the Enceladus fly-by photos {EDIT: click on N00030070 & N0003oo87.jpg. -- Brad}. Everyone was looking at the smooth fields, the cat scratches and the ruptures. I did an interview tonight and I just could not believe it. They're looking for physical evidence of micro-geyzers and missing a mountain over two miles across and a mile high. It's not that it's not there, and easy to see, with features more obvious than your big toe. It's that nobody sees it yet. The funny thing is that the big news is all the ionized oxygen in the Enceladan "atmosphere," - which means that venting of water is coming from somewhere. (To me, the bigger news is that the dissociated water and the resulting oxygen rich surface ice in subduction zones means that free oxygen must be getting subducted down into the subsurface oceans. That's like rocket fuel for biology - - meaning that bacterial Consortia, if such exist, can make the leap from rusticles to, say, squid-like thingies.)

- - Charlie P.

P.S. Did you post my Enceladus letter. If so, please make sure to include the date I sent it. It's sure to be named Mount Pellegrino now - - I want that name because it's a water volcano, and I do drink Pellegrino water, even though my side of the family was disowned by them and banished from Naples over a century ago. No hard feelings. :wink:
Interesting. It really looks like a hydrostatic pingo. This is where trapped melted water underground slowly freezes. As it freezes ithe ice in it expands, forcing a column of material upwards. I never though of that way before, but I suppose a pingo could be considered to be a cryovolcano.


Pingo
Image
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Post by Echus Cthulhu Mythos »

Is the volcano thing that mound that is just above the crack which comes off the main large crack thing (the top rightish of the first photo and the bottom of the second photo)?
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Post by Darb »

Echus Cthulhu Mythos wrote:Is the volcano thing that mound that is just above the crack which comes off the main large crack thing (the top rightish of the first photo and the bottom of the second photo)?
Open N00030070, then click on the expand button to zoom in to max resolution. Starting in the upper left corner, scroll right across the top, to about the midway point between the upper left corner and the area where the image starts to darken and fade out. There's a cluster of craters. Roll your eyes down slightly, and you'll see what appears to be a cone emerging from the lower left rim of a med-lg crater, and occluding about half of it.

Think of it as a big zit, erupting from the edge of a large pock mark on the face of enceladus. ;)
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Post by Darb »

Bozola: ah, I didn't know that term. Interesting.
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Post by clong »

TNSTAAFL, and don't forget your feather duster:


http://www.wired.com/news/space/0,2697,67110,00.html
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