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In article , Hop David wrote:
There've been lots of pics of Saturn's rings and moons but, come to think of it, haven't seen many close-ups of Saturn. In contrast, ISTR Galileo sending many spectacular photos of Jupiter's "surface". That's partly because it (Jupiter) offers the most extreme laboratory for studying deep atmospheres with heating from below, while Saturn is lesser in all respects - less deep, less dense and less heat from below. Also, telescopic observations over extended periods (centuries) have revealed comparatively less activity than on Jupiter. So they're concentrating on the moons for the moment. I think the first 50-odd orbits through the system are designed to give multiple passes of Titan, then there will be a series of close passes of Titan to change the orbital attitude and altitude to get a better look at the inner moons and 'surface'. -- Aidan Karley, Aberdeen, Scotland, Location: 57°10'11" N, 02°08'43" W (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233 |
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Hop David wrote: There've been lots of pics of Saturn's rings and moons but, come to think of it, haven't seen many close-ups of Saturn. Cassini got a nice shot of the north polar region recently: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedi...m?imageID=1322 Pat |
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Joseph Lazio ) wrote:
: "RK" == Rodney Kelp writes: : RK When they going to take a look at the surface of Saturn? : They aren't, and they can't. In all likelihood, Saturn does not have : a "surface." Rather, the atmosphere just keeps getting denser and : denser as you go deeper. Wouldn't it make sense that Saturn, as well as the other gas planets, has a thick atmosphere, followed by a liquid layer and then a solid layer (lithoshere). Unlike earth, they would be gradual from gas to liquid and liquid to solid. Just a theory of course. Eric : -- : Lt. Lazio, HTML police | e-mail: : No means no, stop rape. | http://patriot.net/%7Ejlazio/ : sci.astro FAQ at http://sciastro.astronomy.net/sci.astro.html |
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Eric Chomko wrote:
Joseph Lazio ) wrote: : "RK" == Rodney Kelp writes: : RK When they going to take a look at the surface of Saturn? : They aren't, and they can't. In all likelihood, Saturn does not have : a "surface." Rather, the atmosphere just keeps getting denser and : denser as you go deeper. Wouldn't it make sense that Saturn, as well as the other gas planets, has a thick atmosphere, followed by a liquid layer and then a solid layer (lithoshere). Unlike earth, they would be gradual from gas to liquid and liquid to solid. Just a theory of course. That depends on the planet and its mass. One thing to realize is that the pressures are very high (Jupiter's core is at about 80 megabars) and temperatures are also very high (20-30,000 K in the core of Jupiter). Solid metallic hydrogen requires low temperatures. Uranus and Neptune probably don't have liquid or solid hydrogen at their cores; they do apparently have a liquid core of water, then some solid ices around an inner rock core, but they don't have enough total mass to compress the hydrogen enough for it to be liquid or solid. Saturn apparently has a liquid metallic hydrogen outer core, under layers of gas and liquid hydrogen. There's a solid rock/ice core at the middle. The metallic hydrogen isn't compressed enough to be solid. Jupiter apparently also has an outer core which is liquid metallic hydrogen, not solid, and an inner core of rock and other solids. -george william herbert |
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On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, in sci.space.tech,
Hop David said: John Schilling wrote: When they going to take a look at the surface of Saturn? If that wasn't a troll or a joke that went right over my head, the answer is that Saturn doesn't have a surface. I am guessing by "surface" Rodney means cloud tops 60,270 km from Saturn's center. There've been lots of pics of Saturn's rings and moons but, come to think of it, haven't seen many close-ups of Saturn. Saturn has a haze above the cloud tops that makes pictures of it less interesting from both an aesthetic and a scientific point of view. It's why you get those spectacular marbled images from Jupiter and just a few shots of pale streaky Saturn. It's a good thing for its self-esteem that it has those gorgeous rings, really :-) Just think what a dull yellow orb it would be otherwise. Uranus and Neptune make a similar pair: quiet Uranus and swirly blue-onyx Neptune, with Uranus redeemed by its unusual polar orientation (when seen at the right time of "year"). ISTR the appearance is again mostly an effect of high-level haze, although Uranus actually is genuinely less active than Neptune. -- Del Cotter Thanks to the recent increase in UBE, I will soon be ignoring email sent to . Please send your email to del2 instead. |
#46
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All good points made here. I can see now why the proble had to be the
way it was. An interesting side note. Its been reported that the Parkes observatory continued to detect data from Huygens 3 hours after Cassini passed out of range. Whether the data was useful - i dont know. |
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"dexx" wrote in message ... An interesting side note. Its been reported that the Parkes observatory continued to detect data from Huygens 3 hours after Cassini passed out of range. Whether the data was useful - i dont know. Radiotelescopes could detect the Huygens signal (and provided immediate confirmation that the probe had successfully deployed in Titan's atmosphere), but they couldn't collect data. |
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dexx wrote:
[...] An interesting side note. Its been reported that the Parkes observatory continued to detect data from Huygens 3 hours after Cassini passed out of range. Whether the data was useful - i dont know. Just as a matter of interest, were any of the Earth-based radio telescopes able to extract actual data from Huygens' datastream, or were they just picking up the carrier wave? Could we get all those lost pictures from analysing the telemetry? -- +- David Given --McQ-+ "Under communism, man exploits man. Under | | capitalism, it's just the opposite." --- John | ) | Kenneth Galbrith +- www.cowlark.com --+ |
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Carey Sublette wrote:
Radiotelescopes could detect the Huygens signal (and provided immediate confirmation that the probe had successfully deployed in Titan's atmosphere), but they couldn't collect data. Couldn't collect telemetry at least. They ought to be able to provide some useful dopler data and thus information on Titan's winds. |
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