Friday, July 02, 2004
Day Two in Saturn Orbit
Press conference: First announcement (from Don Shemansky of the UVIS team) - from neutral oxygen observation, the diffuse E-ring apparently doubled in mass (to 10, 00 tonnes of oxygen) in January - before returning to normal in a matter of four months. As the lifetime of 1 micron particles is estimated at 40 days, they estimate that 100 million years is required for the decay of the entire E-ring (gotta be some huge assumptions here). Speculation about meteor impact, no mention of the Obvious, Out-There Candidate - the snow-covered moon, Enceladus, that orbits at the heart of the E-ring. Is this evidence for geysers? Closer encounters with this target next year.
Shemansky is causing the press folk's heads to explode. "Plasma sheet", "Cluster ions", "Adiabatically" - MATH IS HARD....
VIMS - The composition of the rings - bright parts are water ice superimposed of a thin dark 'dirt' that fills the gaps. 'Dirt' is same ferrous iron stuff as found on Phoebe. No carbon dioxide or organics yet.
ISS - In the approach, a streamer of ring material was identified attaching the thin F-ring to the shepherd moon Prometheus.
Meteorology...Winds and temperature structure.
ISS again - Titan. Approach map at 35 km/pixel doesn't show impact craters. If the dark stuff is liquid, then Titan, like Mars and Venus, has an equatorial rift system. T-0 encounter will get a factor of ten improvement resolution over 360E/-65N - if the atmosphere is clear at the target wavelengths.
Press conference: First announcement (from Don Shemansky of the UVIS team) - from neutral oxygen observation, the diffuse E-ring apparently doubled in mass (to 10, 00 tonnes of oxygen) in January - before returning to normal in a matter of four months. As the lifetime of 1 micron particles is estimated at 40 days, they estimate that 100 million years is required for the decay of the entire E-ring (gotta be some huge assumptions here). Speculation about meteor impact, no mention of the Obvious, Out-There Candidate - the snow-covered moon, Enceladus, that orbits at the heart of the E-ring. Is this evidence for geysers? Closer encounters with this target next year.
Shemansky is causing the press folk's heads to explode. "Plasma sheet", "Cluster ions", "Adiabatically" - MATH IS HARD....
VIMS - The composition of the rings - bright parts are water ice superimposed of a thin dark 'dirt' that fills the gaps. 'Dirt' is same ferrous iron stuff as found on Phoebe. No carbon dioxide or organics yet.
ISS - In the approach, a streamer of ring material was identified attaching the thin F-ring to the shepherd moon Prometheus.
Meteorology...Winds and temperature structure.
ISS again - Titan. Approach map at 35 km/pixel doesn't show impact craters. If the dark stuff is liquid, then Titan, like Mars and Venus, has an equatorial rift system. T-0 encounter will get a factor of ten improvement resolution over 360E/-65N - if the atmosphere is clear at the target wavelengths.
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