Discoveries using the telescopes on Mauna Kea

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Cassini is at the moment the 4th most distant man made object from Earth. Voyager 1 is now in interstellar space, Voyager 2 is the next farthest, then New Horizons which recently sent back those incredible pictures of Pluto.

The abrupt end to Cassini's mission this week might best be summed up with a line from a Neil Young song:
"It's better to burn out, than to fade away"


The Donner Party really wasn't that great of a party, was it?

[TomK]

That list is missing Pioneer 10 and 11. They are way out there but stopped operating some years ago. I think your list only includes ones that are still operational.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Yes, thanks, I should have said still transmitting. The Pioneer spacecraft each have a plaque of a man, a woman, and our solar system's location on them, so even though they no longer emit an electronic signal, they continue to quietly carry visual information about the people who built them, as they travel beyond the solar system.

The Donner Party really wasn't that great of a party, was it?

[TomK]

For geeks: most distant objects made on earth:

Voyager 1 - 140 AU
Pioneer 10 - 117 AU (estimate)
Voyager 2 - 115 AU
Pioneer 11 - 96 AU (estimate)
New Horizons - 39 AU
Cassini - 10 AU

An AU is an "astronomical unit" which is the average distance between the sun and the earth, roughly 93 million miles. To give some perspective, our nearest star (not including the sun) is a little over 276 thousand AU away...

[geochem]

quote:

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Originally posted by leilanidude

TomK - Was there a full EIS done for this destruction into sacred land?
[]

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A bit if trivia for Tom and others interested in space research: the Cassini probe generated one of the first of the "digital media controversies" (and huge problems for NASA) prior to launch. Because it carried on board a small nuclear reactor, a couple of wackos undertook a fear-mongering campaign against its launch claiming that, if the launch failed, or if it's trajectory was incorrectly calculated (since, I believe, it used a sling-shot maneuver) it could rain radiation down onto the earth. Apparently it cost NASA several million dollars to deal with the controversy and most of the bogus claims of impending disaster could be traced back to a very small handful of individuals.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

trivia for Tom and others interested in space research: the Cassini probe generated one of the first of the "digital media controversies"

Thanks for the reminder geochem, I remember that Fake Controversy. As you said, the first claim centered around a possible launch disaster, the second a reentry of Cassini into earth's atmosphere some months later when it looped around our gravitational field to gain speed on its way to Saturn.

Both instances were in the realm of possibility, but claims of a potential nuclear catastrophe were extremely exaggerated by the Proto-protectors, as well as any predicted affects on Florida or Earth.

Unfortunately those Proto-protectors were right in one way, there was a long term disaster. Except it wasn't Cassini, it was the Proto-protectors themselves who left behind a legacy of radioactive lies which seemingly can never be safely disposed of with reason or science or the truth.

The Donner Party really wasn't that great of a party, was it?

[geochem]

quote:

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Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge

Unfortunately those Proto-protectors were right in one way, there was a long term disaster. Except it wasn't Cassini, it was the Proto-protectors themselves who left behind a legacy of radioactive lies which seemingly can never be safely disposed of with reason or science or the truth.

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Entirely correct - but that seems to be their objective. I spoke to a social scientist at a conference some years ago who had studied that controversy and she said that many thousands of emails were generated endorsing the alleged threats but they all could be traced back to three individuals who initiated the bogus claims. A small minority able to manipulate the scientifically naive masses to try to block a valuable project... We're not as far from the Salem witch trials as we'd like to think...

[TomK]

For anyone interested, NASA has released a free E-book about the Cassini-Huygens mission with stunning images of Saturn, its rings and its moons.

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/7777/

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

where it could potentially collide with one of its moons and contaminate the surface

Question Tom -
Was the Huygens probe, which was attached to Cassini and designed to safely land on Titan, specially sanitized to prevent contamination of Titan? Otherwise if Cassini & Huygens made the journey to Saturn together, wouldn't they both have the same potential to harbor Earth microbes?

[TomK]

HOTPE - good question.

No, the Huygens probe was not sterilized any more than any other probe we've sent. The reason for this is although scientists were aware of the (remote) possibility of contamination, it was thought the chances of life on Titan were so remote the precaution wasn't taken. It's only since the launch that the possibility of life there has been discovered to be more of a possibility, although still extremely remote. I'm sure any future missions will take more precautions.

In addition, the idea to destroy Cassini in Saturn's atmosphere was only taken relatively recently after people realized that chances of life in the system weren't as remote as previously thought. Ironically, this information came from the Cassini-Huygens mission itself!