No, for serious. If you like space AT ALL, you need to watch this. It's a composite of photographs from the Cassini probe, put together digitally to make a simulated "flyby" of Saturn. No SGI trickery here--this is the real things that Cassini actually saw. And while I question their choice of music, the whole thing gave me chills (the good kind.)
WASHINGTON – For the first time, Earth has a regular orbiting eye-in-the-sky spying on the solar system's smallest and strangest planet, Mercury.
NASA's spacecraft called Messenger successfully veered into a pinpoint orbit Thursday night after a 6 1/2-year trip and 4.9 billion miles and tricky maneuvering to fend off the gravitational pull of the sun. It is the fifth planet in our solar system that NASA has orbited, in addition to the Earth and the moon.
"It was right on the money," Messenger's chief engineer, Eric Finnegan, said. Messenger is in orbit that brings it as close as 120 miles above the planet's surface. "This is as close you can possibly get to being perfect."
"Everybody was whooping and hollering; we are elated," Finnegan said. "There's a lot of work left to be done, but we are there."
Mercury is not only difficult to get to, but it's has some of the most extremes in the solar system. Temperatures there swing wildly by 1,100 degrees. While it gets up to 800 degrees on the planet closest to the sun, it also is so cold and dark in some craters that the temperatures don't get above 300 degrees below zero. Radar even shows that there is likely frozen ice in those craters, something Messenger will try to confirm.
Also, in the words of George Takei, "Helllllloooooooooooooo....."
I was questioning the fly-through of the rings, and how they appeared to be only 2D. So, after doing some research, I have learned that the rings have an average thickness of 20 meters, so they are in fact, really, really paper thin when compared to the planet.
Thanks for making me learn something first thing in the morning!
(yeah, yeah pitched down and sped up....still creepy though )
SoldierHawk
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Title: Warrior-Poet
Joined: Jan 15 2009
Location: San Diego, CA
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Posted:
Mar 22 2011 02:30 am
Knyte wrote:
Also, in the words of George Takei, "Helllllloooooooooooooo....."
I was questioning the fly-through of the rings, and how they appeared to be only 2D. So, after doing some research, I have learned that the rings have an average thickness of 20 meters, so they are in fact, really, really paper thin when compared to the planet.
Thanks for making me learn something first thing in the morning!
Indeed! That caught me off guard for a sec too, 'til I remembered that. (I'm a certified space nerd, so I have all sorts of random, useless factoids floating around in my head about the planets and such.)
Also, Etch: that signal was creepy, yet awesome. Reminds me of the distress beacon of the Icarus I from one of my all-time favorite movies, Sunshine.
)