io9: Saturn

How to Find Your Way Home by the Light of a Pulsar

Michael Reilly — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:02:14 PDT

How do you navigate when you're floating out in deep space? By pulsar, that's how. In outer space (and even in Earth orbit) GPS doesn't do you a whole lot of good, so space scientists at the PLANS navigation conference in Monterey, CA this week have put together a couple of papers designed to show that a spacecraft could navigate autonomously by triangulating off the X-ray light emitted from pulsars scattered throughout the universe. The new system promises to be for space what GPS is for Earth; pretty useful when your stranded out past Saturn wondering "maybe that should have been a right at Titan..."

Of course if it has a military application, you know DARPA thought of it first. Back in 2005 the feds funded research into 'XNAV', as they like to call it, to see if it could be used as a backup to GPS in case that system got jammed or went down during a time of war (do these guys ever think about anything other than war?).

But space scientists at PLANS think XNAV is the primary way for future spacecraft to navigate the stars. Using the system, robot spaceships could make their way safely and accurately through interstellar space without human intervention. It might pave the way for ultra-long missions to nearby stars and planets, while the human cargo snores peacefully away in hypersleep.

Source: PLANS conference website

Saturn Thunderstorm Would Fry Earth in a Hurry

Michael Reilly — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:31:28 PDT

When other planets do storms, they do 'em right. The Cassini spacecraft snapped photos of this monster thunderstorm on Saturn that's been raging for five months now, each lightning bolt packing 10,000 times more juice than it's Earthly counterparts. Jupiter's still got the illest storm in the solar system with it's almost four-century old Great Red Spot, but Saturn's storm's not too shabby — it's that blotch down in the lower right-hand part of the planet. That bright spot just below the rings? That's Saturn's moon Tethys looking way bigger than it should because it's in the foreground, just to give you a rough sense of scale. (from NASA)

A Vector Map of the Unnamed Methane Sea on Titan

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:00:00 PDT

Peter Minton is a California teacher who loves to make vector maps in his spare time. His favorite places to map are islands and coastlines, and so when the Cassini-Huygens probe sent back images from Saturn's moon Titan he was happy to discover the geographical features he loves most. There, on the pole of Titan, was a sea full of islands. An unnamed methane sea, but still mappable using vectoring software. This is the map he created, with longitude and latitude lines.

Minton, who already created vector maps of the islands in this sea, writes:

I went ahead and digitized the shoreline of the unnamed methane sea . . . It is one of the largest bodies of liquid known to exist on this moon of Saturn. This body of liquid methane, ethane and nitrogen is about the size of Lake Superior.

The intrepid map afficionado at Strange Maps blog adds:

The orange opacity of Titan's atmosphere makes the moon appear bigger than it actually is - astronomers have since distinguished between permanent cloud cover and surface, and downgraded it from the first- to the second-largest moon in our system, after Jupiter's satellite Ganymede.
Not until the flyby, in 2004, of the Cassini-Huygens mission could scientists confirm the speculation, first ignited by both Voyager missions and then heightened by Hubble observations, that Titan is the only heavenly body (save Earth) to contain large liquid surfaces - or seas, as non-astronomers would call them. For they seem a bit too small to be labelled oceans.

These seas, or lakes, most probably consisting of methane or another hydrocarbon, can be seen on this page of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

This sea is one of the few unnamed large bodies of liquid in the solar system. What should we name it?

EVS-Islands [via Strange Maps]

NASA's Probe Will Buzz Titan Landing Site

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:00:23 PDT

NASA may have failed to prove there's an underground ocean on Saturn's moon Enceladus, but now scientists claim they've found outstanding new evidence that there may be a vast ocean under the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. In this newly released image, Titan peeks out from behind Saturn while another moon, Tethys, streaks past the planet's shadowy rings. Click through for a gorgeous Titan gallery.

Scientists began to suspect a global ocean when they saw some landmarks on Titan had shifted up to 19 miles between October 2004 and May 2007. The best explanation is a vast ocean, separating the planet's icy crust from its rocky center. The Cassini Space probe will fly within 620 miles of Titan, sample the atmosphere, and take pictures of the site where the Huygens probe landed.

Failed Mission to Suck Up Moon Goo Results in Gorgeous Photos

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:00:10 PDT

Space probe Cassini dove headlong into the massive, icy plumes of liquid that spew from the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus. It managed to get some amazing images of the southern pole of the moon (pictured here), but sadly a mysterious software glitch prevented it from transmitting data about the moon jizz back to Earth.

At least we can console ourselves with this artist's rendering of what it would look like to be zooming through Enceladus' plumes if they were visible to the naked eye.

Cassini probe failed to 'taste' moon's geysers in flyby [New Scientist]

Space Probe Will Have Near-Collision With Saturn Moon

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:00:23 PDT

The Cassini Space Probe will fly dangerously close to Saturn's moon Enceladus tomorrow, skirting along the edge of the moon's huge geysers to sample water-ice, dust and gas from their plumes. Cassini's particle analyzers will study the composition of the plumes in the hope of settling, once and for all, whether they may come from a buried ocean. At its closest approach, Cassini will only be about 30 miles from the moon, and the daredevil stunt requires amazing technical finesse. The image above is an artist's conception of the flyby. Click through for two gorgeous photos of Enceladus' crazy fountains.

Images by NASA/JPL. [Science Daily]

NASA's Secret Mission to Saturn in Nuke-Powered Ships

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:40:50 PST

Back in the mid-twentieth century, a bunch of NASA engineers had a dream — a highly-classified dream — about taking a nuclear-powered rocked to Saturn. They even went so far as to plan the entire device, create design specs and concept art (some of it pictured here), and name it "Project Orion." Now science historian George Dyson has unearthed a bunch of the recently re-classified papers related to Project Orion, which his father Freeman Dyson was involved in, and put them together into a short, entertaining presentation. Essentially he's unearthed an alternate history of the space program that might have been if NASA hadn't canceled it. Check out his entertaining story below.

Titan Rises Behind Saturn's Rings

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:00:36 PST

Haze-covered Titan, a moon of Saturn with a dense, cloudy atmosphere, was mapped extensively by the recent Cassini-Huygens space probe. The probe sent back beautiful space vistas like this one, whereTitan is the glowing globe behind Saturn's rings, and tiny moon Epimetheus is the small body you see floating above it. The space probe also gave up-close view of the surface of this moon, perhaps most famous for being the place where the aliens of 2001 have left a second monolith. What you may not have known is that the surface of Titan is ridged with sand dunes. Want to see them?

Above, you can see Titan's dunes. Below, there are dunes from an Earth desert. The sand formations are remarkably similar. Images via NASA.

Saturn Blocks Out The Sunlight

charliejane — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:30:23 PST

This is a total eclipse of the sun by Saturn, as seen by NASA's Cassini space probe. I totally want this image painted on black velvet. This famous image is just one of the photos that Cassini Imaging Team leader Carolyn Porco showed off during her talk about Saturn and its moons, now online at TED. [TED, via Runaway Pancake]

Is There Life On Saturn's Moon?

charliejane — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:30:23 PST

Do these water jets come from an underground ocean orbiting Saturn? If so, it could nurture the only extraterrestrial life-forms in our solar system. But one scientist says that water is too pure to come from a buried ocean on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons.

The water has none of the sodium which it would have after years of contact with rock, claims University of Colorado scientist Nick Schneider. But other scientists argue there might be sodium which Schneider's telescope analysis failed to detect. And even Schneider isn't claiming there's no ocean on Enceladus, just that the water jets don't come from it. NASA may have to mount a mission to find out for sure if the Saturn moon holds life forms. Image by NASA/JPL [BBC]

Saturn: Hot Or Not?

charliejane — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:30:28 PST

You can vote for the sexiest image of Saturn and its moons from the Cassini space probe, until Dec. 30. You even get to rate every space photo from 1 to 10, bringing a whole new meaning to "science porn." This pic shows the "dragon storm" on Saturn, a disturbance so fierce it kicked up radio waves.

Flying Saucers Are Orbiting Saturn Right Now

charliejane — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:00:00 PST

Atlas and Pan, two of Saturn's moons, look like flying saucers in these new images from the Cassini space probe. The cause? Unique equatorial ridges. Image by Peter Thomas and Carolyn Porco for CICLOPS.