Saturday, June 12, 2004
Return to an planetary archipelago...
In 1997, a Canterbury geology student named Kylie Eckersley decided to have a 'space' themed 21st-birthday celebration. My contribution (immediately prior to a scandalous game of chandeliers and subsequent, alleged and unremembered, debauchery) was to gather up signatures and send them to the Planetary Society. They made interesting reading, as people gave excellent advice to Aliens as to how to have a good time and who they should go kidnap. I wish I made a copy. The scrawls were scanned and copied onto a DVD, which was then bolted onto the side of the good ship Cassini, bound for Saturn.
Seven years later, Cassini has arrived at the outer isles of the grand archipelago of the outer solar system. Yesterday it passed the battered retrograde moon Phoebe (pictured), as the spacecraft catches up with the ringed planet in its orbit. At the end of the month Cassini will cross in front of Saturn, pierce the outer rings directly in front of the planet, and begin a 90-minute engine burn high over the bulk of the rings that will bend its path and thread it back through the ring system on Saturn's night side. Years of orbiting and observations will follow.
This particular ring gap is thought to be clear (Pioneer 11 in 1979 and Voyager 2 in 1981 survived the crossing, although Pioneer nearly discovered a new moon the hard way, and Voyager's camera platform chose that moment of high drama to seize up.) To be safe, Cassini will batter its way through the hopefully empty gap with its communications dish pointing troubles way, protecting sensitive instruments, fuel tanks, and the all-important DVD bearing drunken insults to the cosmos.
Seven years later, Cassini has arrived at the outer isles of the grand archipelago of the outer solar system. Yesterday it passed the battered retrograde moon Phoebe (pictured), as the spacecraft catches up with the ringed planet in its orbit. At the end of the month Cassini will cross in front of Saturn, pierce the outer rings directly in front of the planet, and begin a 90-minute engine burn high over the bulk of the rings that will bend its path and thread it back through the ring system on Saturn's night side. Years of orbiting and observations will follow.
This particular ring gap is thought to be clear (Pioneer 11 in 1979 and Voyager 2 in 1981 survived the crossing, although Pioneer nearly discovered a new moon the hard way, and Voyager's camera platform chose that moment of high drama to seize up.) To be safe, Cassini will batter its way through the hopefully empty gap with its communications dish pointing troubles way, protecting sensitive instruments, fuel tanks, and the all-important DVD bearing drunken insults to the cosmos.
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