Cassini's Last Days

[Clueless Morgan]

Pssh! What's this tardigrade bullshit?

Everyone knows we come from thetans who were kidnapped and transplanted onto the planet known then as Teegeeack (aka Earth) by Xenu after he was overthrown as leader of the Galactic Confederacy. He then threw us into volcanoes that he then dropped nuclear bombs on in an effort to destroy us but we survived, implanted ourselves (our thetan selves) into clams from which we then evolved.

That's how it happened, y'all. Stop fooling yourselves.

[Succubus]

Cassini's greatest hits.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy...aturn.html

And what stunner's they are. Enceladus is gorgeous but Saturn eclipsing the Sun is now my desktop background. I was a bit puzzled by that disk in the centre of the image, I guessed it was some sort of mask to shield the optics from the sun, oh boy was I wrong, its Saturn itself.

An excellent write up here...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy...onder.html

And to quote Phil Plait...

And it never ends. There will always be more to find, more to explore, and more to learn. And it’s science that will take us there, propelled by our own imagination, our sense of wonder, and our desire to find things out.

Science: it works bitches.

[Anomalocaris]

We come from Tardigrades

What you mean "come from"? Many of us aspire to tardigradehood.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

This effort to avoid contaminating the moons of gas giants is pretty ridiculous.   If in the staggeringly unlikely event the earth microbes on the probes survive the trip there, through countless orbits through radiation belts before the probe finally impacts with a moon, the impact, and the conditions on the moon, and then establish a durable colony, I would say we were just given the very first long shot at ensuring some earthly life will survive the extinction of life on earth.

In 3-4 billion years, even before the sun becomes a red giant and eventually engulf the earth, what we deliver by accident to the gas giants may be the last remaining vestige of life from earth.

Why take any chances at all?

[Clueless Morgan]

Cassini's greatest hits.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy...aturn.html

And what stunner's they are. Enceladus is gorgeous but Saturn eclipsing the Sun is now my desktop background. I was a bit puzzled by that disk in the centre of the image, I guessed it was some sort of mask to shield the optics from the sun, oh boy was I wrong, its Saturn itself.

The image in the first post (Saturn eclipsing the sun) has been my desktop background for years. I've tried to find a poster print of it to continue to the admittedly weird tradition in my family of having astronomical photos in the bathroom but I haven't found one yet that has met my size+price point requirements.

[Succubus]

Cassini's greatest hits.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy...aturn.html

And what stunner's they are. Enceladus is gorgeous but Saturn eclipsing the Sun is now my desktop background. I was a bit puzzled by that disk in the centre of the image, I guessed it was some sort of mask to shield the optics from the sun, oh boy was I wrong, its Saturn itself.

The image in the first post (Saturn eclipsing the sun) has been my desktop background for years.  I've tried to find a poster print of it to continue to the admittedly weird tradition in my family of having astronomical photos in the bathroom but I haven't found one yet that has met my size+price point requirements.

I feel your pain. I could have bought a bath full of Gin with the money I've wasted trying to edge-to-edge print a poster sized image of say, the Horsehead Nebula.
I have an A3 printer so it should be easier seeing as there are fewer elements to stitch together, but no, you can always see the joins. The trial runs with scabby paper and black ink look fine, but print in colour on that £1 a slice matt satin swag and it all goes tits up.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The image in the first post (Saturn eclipsing the sun) has been my desktop background for years.  I've tried to find a poster print of it to continue to the admittedly weird tradition in my family of having astronomical photos in the bathroom but I haven't found one yet that has met my size+price point requirements.

I feel your pain. I could have bought a bath full of Gin with the money I've wasted trying to edge-to-edge print a poster sized image of say, the Horsehead Nebula.
I have an A3 printer so it should be easier seeing as there are fewer elements to stitch together, but no, you can always see the joins. The trial runs with scabby paper and black ink look fine, but print in colour on that £1 a slice matt satin swag and it all goes tits up.

For that I take the image to Office Depot and have someone who knows what they're doing print it for me.

[Succubus]

I feel your pain. I could have bought a bath full of Gin with the money I've wasted trying to edge-to-edge print a poster sized image of say, the Horsehead Nebula.
I have an A3 printer so it should be easier seeing as there are fewer elements to stitch together, but no, you can always see the joins. The trial runs with scabby paper and black ink look fine, but print in colour on that £1 a slice matt satin swag and it all goes tits up.

For that I take the image to Office Depot and have someone who knows what they're doing print it for me.

Where's the fun in that?

[pocaracas]

Curious.... I saw this pic just a couple days ago:



""
This view from the Cassini spacecraft shows a wave structure in Saturn's rings known as the Janus 2:1 spiral density wave. Resulting from the same process that creates spiral galaxies, spiral density waves in Saturn’s rings are much more tightly wound. In this case, every second wave crest is actually the same spiral arm which has encircled the entire planet multiple times. At this location, ring particles orbit Saturn twice for every time the moon Janus orbits once, creating an orbital resonance. The wave propagates outward from the resonance (and away from Saturn), toward upper-left in this view. The small, bright spots in the image are places where radiation or cosmic rays have interfered with the camera sensor. This image was taken on June 4, 2017.
""

May Cassini's pics keep bringing us wonderful new sights!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

For that I take the image to Office Depot and have someone who knows what they're doing print it for me.

Where's the fun in that?

Boss Lady says no more craters in the drywall.