I am DA MAN!


When it comes to news, at least!

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OK, dredging out my orbit calculator, it looks like it takes .59 km/sec to enter the 1.33x178 RS orbit from an earth transfer ellipse, whereas it would take 1.42 km/sec to enter the 8.2x178 RS orbit directly. It takes an additional .33 km/sec burn to raise the periapsis from 1.33 to 8.2 RS, for a total of .92 km/sec. So the two-step approach saves about 0.5 km/sec delta V.

All this orbital mechanics stuff is way above my head! #-o
So, July 1rst is when Cassini preforms the burn? Then what about July 4th? What happens then? I ask, since this can be another Fourth of July party for NASA, the first being the Pathfinder on Mars. I still remember that one. I was camping with my grandparents at a campground not too far away from Cape Canaveral. I think I know were I'll be this July; at sea!
In the meantime, I'll keep an eye open for the "Eye of Japateus" (2001, the novel). And then we'll ring in the new year with Titan's smog. Think we can send a probe just to examin the rings of Saturn? Name it Frodo! Or Sauron! Or Gollum (Smegol)! Okay, lame jokes!
8-[

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This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

Cassini has passed 40-million-kilometer line just now.

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I just saw this showing the combing of large storms on Saturn's surface from Cassini.

(edited for clarity)

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How far from Earth now?
So, its April 12th, then we have just over 2 months until the big event. That's orbital insertion, right? And please don't flood me with math, I forgot most of it since being in the navy. :wink:

__________________
This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

Thats great news. Lets hope everything goes alright for Cassini.

From.... JPL

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Cassini Sees Shepherding Moons

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I wonder what kind of storms they are. Thunderstorms, perhaps?

And as I've said in the past-I wonder if thunderstorms on Saturn are more violent than on Jupiter.

Guess we'll find out. This is what has me the most fascinated about the Cassini mission. It should be cool to see Cassini take pictures of lightning flashes on Saturn's night side, like Galileo did with Jupiter.

I doubt Saturn's weather is more violent that Jupiters. Otherwise, wouldn't we see Jupiter-like storms there? Or does that just mean Jupiter's atmosphere is more stable for large storms to form than Saturn's? More stuff for Cassini to investigate!
Was lightning ever detected at Saturn by any of the previous probes?

__________________
This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

There are a few other interesting events (besides all of the Saturn imaging that will resume) during that period :
July 2, 1 day after SOI : 340,000 km flyby of Titan
October 26 : 1200 km flyby of Titan
December 13 : 2600 km flyby of Titan
December 31 - January 1 : 64,000 km flyby of Iapetus

It's about 1379 million kilometers from the Earth now.

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Why not? Voyagers found higher windspeeds on Saturn. Also huge equatorial storms have been detect there. On the other hand, Jupiter's atmosphere is much more turbulent, thanks to Sun, so Jupiter weather might be more violent in that way (more colliding storms etc.) I don't know about Uranus, it was hidden beneath the haze and the planet doesn't have internal heat source, so it might be most pacific of the gas giants. Neptunus, thanks to lack of solar heating and thus turbulence has highest windspeeds of all.

Yes, by Voyagers. Was there some lightning detected even between ring particles?

Well, the fact that Saturn has supersonic winds (over 1,000 mph) in itself makes the weather more violent. If 1,000 mph winds aren't categorized as violent weather, then I don't know what is.

Also, as Kullat Nunu pointed out, there were those huge eruptions of white cloud that appeared in Saturn's atmosphere. I'm VERY curious as to what they are. Maybe they are titanic thunderstorm complexes. As I may have mentioned, I have a fascination for violent weather-and I am primarily interested in thunderstorm activity on Saturn. (If there's any on Titan, that would be interesting to see as well. )

One thing Kullat Nunu-I disagree that the sun is responsible for the violent storms on Jupiter-I think that this is more due to internal heating. From what I recall, Jupiter emits more heat than it receives from the sun. A fact: when the Galileo probe ceased transmitting at 175 miles into the Jovian atmosphere, the pressure was 22 Earth atmospheres, with a temperature of 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

If I recall correctly, much of Jupiter's thunderstorm activity was located near the equator. However, it is said that there appears to be a terrific amount of convection at the poles. I don't think any photos were taken to spot lightning at the poles.

8)

I meant turbulence, caused by solar heating, adds some "violence" as winds can't blow straight and start colliding each other. Internal heating is of course main drive of the winds, especially deeper in the atmosphere.

Does periapsis in an orbit around Saturn have a special name? Like, Perisaturn or Perichronos or something?

Perichron.

Surely, he's pulling our leg. :roll:

That reminds me...time for some apopie!

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From the following URL:

http://space.com/scienceastronomy/so...er_000209.html

8)

Thanks, To Seek. The imaging is very limited in the middle of the visible spectrum....
This may help to explain the blue color band (in lieu of a whiter look) in the northern clouds of Saturn, as discussed on the other thread, since there is little in the green-yellow-orange to combine with the blue to make it white. [I am assuming it was these images which were used to render the wonderful color image we have been admiring.]

It is still possible that it would actually look blue based on scattering.

Does Cassini have the imaging to acquire enough of the spectrum to allow "true" color rendering?

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And so is my postcard!

-Kevin

Cassini was able to produce true color images during its Jupiter Flyby. Only a few more months until we get many more images like the one of Jupiter and Io.

Thanks. Wow! Gorgeous, too!

I found this regarding it's imaging gear....
Impressive! =D>

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Latest image of the week: Saturn in color

Cool 8)

Cassini will be 30,000,000 kilometers from Saturn at 02:57:31 UTC in SCET. It will be 1,340,742,615 kilometers from the Sun then. The speed related to Saturn will be 5466 meters per second. The speed related to the Sun will be 5570 meters per second.

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Two months from now, and we're orbiting Saturn! So far, yet so close, so very close.
I recall reading once that Cassini doesn't have a scan platform for its imaging system. How then does it point the "cameras"? Does the entire spacecraft point them desired object? Or does something else point them?

__________________
This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

Yup. Swinging the whole spacecraft around to have the team with prime pointing control view whatever it is they want to look at. All the photon imaging systems are on the same axis, but other teams -- RADAR, CAPS, INMS, MIMI, ... hmm... I think that is everybody who wants pointing -- also get pointing for their observations.

Lots of "discussion" goes on about who gets to view what, when. No blows have been exchanged yet though! Actually, it is usually quite civil, though there is a lot of politicking that happens: "we'll give up this observation, if you let us use this other time" and such.

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Another 8) shot!

He is their comment on the blue band of light.
Rayleigh Scattering, no doubt.

[But just how blue is the Sun anyway? :-$ ]

That's better than 3 million km/week. So, it should look, roughly, a little more than 10% larger each week. Nuts, might as well do the math now....

Week 1 ... 11%
Week 2.... 12.5% more than week 1
Week 3.... 14% more than week 2
Week 4.... 17.5% more than week 3 (or almost 50% bigger than now)

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