Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: makattak on October 07, 2009, 01:07:00 AM
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Not seven as was previously thought.
And the eighth is MASSIVE.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,561500,00.html (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,561500,00.html)
PASADENA, Calif. — The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered the biggest but never-before-seen ring around the planet Saturn, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced late Tuesday.
The thin array of ice and dust particles lies at the far reaches of the Saturnian system and its orbit is tilted 27 degrees from the planet's main ring plane, the laboratory said.
JPL spokeswoman Whitney Clavin said the ring is very diffuse and doesn't reflect much visible light but the infrared Spitzer telescope was able to detect it.
Although the ring dust is very cold — minus 316 degrees Fahrenheit — it shines with thermal radiation.
No one had looked at its location with an infrared instrument until now, Clavin said.
The bulk of the ring material starts about 3.7 million miles from the planet and extends outward about another 7.4 million miles.
The newly found ring is so huge it would take 1 billion Earths to fill it, JPL said.
Before the discovery Saturn was known to have seven main rings named A through E and several faint unnamed rings.
A paper on the discovery was to be published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.
"This is one supersized ring," said one of the authors, Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Her co-authors are Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland, College Park, and Michael Skrutskie, also of the University of Virginia.
Saturn's moon Phoebe orbits within the ring and is believed to be the source of the material.
The ring also may answer the riddle of another moon, Iapetus, which has a bright side and a very dark side.
The ring circles in the same direction as Phoebe, while Iapetus, the other rings and most of Saturn's other moons go the opposite way. Scientists think material from the outer ring moves inward and slams into Iapetus.
"Astronomers have long suspected that there is a connection between Saturn's outer moon Phoebe and the dark material on Iapetus," said Hamilton. "This new ring provides convincing evidence of that relationship."
The Spitzer mission, launched in 2003, is managed by JPL in Pasadena. Spitzer is 66 million miles from Earth in orbit around the sun.
Don't have much to say other than, Wow, the things we can do.
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Yea, and the way we can pick out smaller and smaller worlds in other star systems? Hell yea. If there is life out there, we'll probably find it.... if it's close enough..... this is just one small step towards that goal.
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The bulk of the ring material starts about 3.7 million miles from the planet
And it is in orbit around Saturn? That's amazing.
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Insert "Rings around Uranus" jokes here. =D
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Insert "Rings around Uranus" jokes here. =D
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv320%2FKoloblicin%2FWorf_is_Frustrated.gif&hash=c444232141922667433a9eb693a9455e1a7470ca)
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Very appropriate Regolith. Bravo.
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Don't have much to say other than, Wow, the things we can do.
Yeah, and considering that we have barely made it off our own planet, it is pretty cool what we can find just sitting here and looking.
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Yep, and there is so much sky to et a bead on with our sensors, we can expect discoveries like this in perpetuity. Just have to get better & better sensors to focus on different bits of sky at different times.
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Just think what we would find if we actually tried to something other than just sit here on Earth.
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robots in space > people in space
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robots in space > people in space
That really depends on the people....
Ohhhhhhhh are you meaning for purposes of exploration and discovery? Yeah, most likely.
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People that are robots in space > robots in space > people in space... =D
Since I've got a bit of a reputation here as a Kurzweilian transhumanist, I couldn't resist.
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shipping water & air out of the gravity well is too darn expensive
telepresence is where we should roam while re-pushing at the x-15 envelope
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Saturn has eight rings?
Well, there are FOUR lights!
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi156.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ft33%2FAJ_Dual%2Ffourlights.png&hash=6824186f8ea5a4c6e7d511871e10ebebbfc06e97)
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Saturn has eight rings?
Well, there are FOUR lights!
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi156.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ft33%2FAJ_Dual%2Ffourlights.png&hash=6824186f8ea5a4c6e7d511871e10ebebbfc06e97)
Why isn't the good captain wearing pants?
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Why isn't the good captain wearing pants?
Prisoner of war being tortured...
Hey, at least I can't tell you Episode number, Title and date first aired!
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Prisoner of war being tortured...
Hey, at least I can't tell you Episode number, Title and date first aired!
I'm SO tempted...
But I'd have to look it up myself. Funny, seeing as how this was one of the episodes Stewart talked about at DragonCon last month as one of his favorites of the TNG run, and he did in fact mention it by name (though he did need a prompt, IIRC). Excellent episode, though.
robots in space > people in space
I disagree. AFAIC, robots in space + people in space.
http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/07/space-quotes.html
Plus: "Manned spaceflight versus robotics? Let's see ... on your wedding night, would you be satisfied to send in a remote, and receive telemetered progress reports? " - author L. Neil Smith =D
For a variety of reasons, including "Because it's THERE!!!", I hope that humanity as a species never agrees with you, Harry.
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Why isn't the good captain wearing pants?
They were all out of red diapers.
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People in space > robots in space. We need colonies, people. The Empire of Mankind needs establishin'.
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I'm SO tempted...But I'd have to look it up myself.
That episode was a good 'un, but then I'm a big fanboy of David Warner.
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People in space > robots in space. We need colonies, people. The Empire of Mankind needs establishin'.
Any chance of running into hostile aliens? If so, we obviously need Space Marines!
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Any chance of running into hostile aliens? If so, we obviously need Spehss Mahreens (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeCfod1XT7E)!
Fixed that for you.
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Fixed that for you.
You know GW is working on a movie, yes?
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You know GW is working on a movie, yes?
Bah, rumours. Sauce plox.
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You know GW is working on a movie, yes?
Yep, saw the announcement from Games Day (wasn't there myself though).
Bah, rumours. Sauce plox.
http://www.ultramarinesthemovie.com/
Announcing ULTRAMARINES - A Warhammer 40k movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLZe9Vx1Dh4)
Space Hulk Q&A; Games Day conversions; Space Marine movie (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=4600021a)
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Yep, saw the announcement from Games Day (wasn't there myself though).
http://www.ultramarinesthemovie.com/
Announcing ULTRAMARINES - A Warhammer 40k movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLZe9Vx1Dh4)
Space Hulk Q&A; Games Day conversions; Space Marine movie (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=4600021a)
I'll believe it when I see a trailer.
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Fair enough. The last link is to Games Workshop itself, so I have fairly high hopes.
It is going to be a straight to DVD affair though, they have said that much themselves.
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Fair enough. The last link is to Games Workshop itself, so I have fairly high hopes.
It is going to be a straight to DVD affair though, they have said that much themselves.
That is too bad. I hope they just do it animated then...there is no way they could do a good live action for a smallish budget.
Although I suppose you could do fun stuff with the Inquisition or something on a smaller budget.
Maybe they can be creative though. I would rather see no movie than a crappy movie.
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I think that it will be CGI. If they can pull of something as good as the CGI Roughnecks series (Starship Troopers) then I will be happy.
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Cromlech, that series was absolutely awesome. You are one of the few people I know who even know it exists. What they really need to do is finish it.
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Yeah, and considering that we have barely made it off our own planet, it is pretty cool what we can find just sitting here and looking.
Yep....we are the ultimate couch-potatoes of the Universe... :rolleyes:
Why isn't the good captain wearing pants?
If this was THE LOVE BOAT, you wouldn't be asking this question.... =D
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Cromlech, that series was absolutely awesome. You are one of the few people I know who even know it exists. What they really need to do is finish it.
I used to watch it religiously before and after school. Much better track record for awesomesauce than the movie series... =D
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I used to watch it religiously before and after school. Much better track record for awesomesauce than the movie series... =D
Marauder was nice. In a SO TERRIBLY FAIL IT LOOPS ALL THE WAY AROUND BACK TO AWESOME.
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Marauder was nice. In a SO TERRIBLY FAIL IT LOOPS ALL THE WAY AROUND BACK TO AWESOME.
Lol, yea it sucked pretty bad.
Casper Van Dien doesn't seem to a measurable level of pride.
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Yep....we are the ultimate couch-potatoes of the Universe... :rolleyes:
My comment was thinking about 1) our knowledge is limited since we are just looking from Earth, but we still are able to find out quite a bit, and 2) thinking how much of what we now know will change once we actually get there in person.