For those of you who do not know, the Cassini spacecraft has to my understanding about 90 minutes before making a very close pass (try 30 miles) by Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Why is this worth a woot?
because
- Saturn's a long way away to control anything with the equivalent of a first edition Gameboy.
- Did I mention the spacecraft was set to pass within 30 miles of the icy moon?
- And, oh yeah, pass through a series of giant water geysers as part of the exercise.
Some folks (raises hand) think this is quite righteous.
Check out the linked Jet Propulsion Lab site above for lots of geek candy.
Me? I just decided to post a diary and have fun with one of NASA's toys below the break. :)
Some EnceleFacts
Enceladus, mind you, is about 314 miles across. This is not especially huge as worlds go (the Moon is 2160 miles in diameter, the Earth 7927) and the surface area is just under 310,000 square miles. It's not even half the size of Greenland. Twenty of them would disappear on the face of Antarctica. But it's still 198 million acres of ice...and we've in earnest not even begun to explore either Antarctica or Greenland and they are a lot closer to us.
What makes the moon interesting is it has liquid water, is geologically active, and relatively warm in the south polar region. Come to think of it Titan is as well of late which makes me wonder if the axial tilt of Saturn vis a vis the Sun matters (all the major moons there are on the equatorial plane of Saturn). So we might be seeing something seasonal here...or not. I'm not a Saturnologist.
Playing with the Solar System Simulator
I just love this thing and because I just geek out about stuff like this, I decided to see what a 2 degree field of view would look like from Cassini as it approached Enceladus for the flyby.
Only.. I couldn't help but notice what this looked like once I got started...
Here we are at 00h 00m, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
0300 GMT: Not much apparent change...
0600 GMT: Definitely growing now...
0900 GMT: Approaching around the limb of the planet Yavin...
sorry can't help it..this looks just like the Rebel fighter attack on the Death Star in the finale of Star Wars
1200 GMT: Lock foils in attack positions...
1500 GMT: I'm going in...
1800 GMT: That's no space station it's a moon...
1830 GMT: I sure hope Luke knocked out those tractor beams...
1840 GMT: Stay on target...
1840 GMT: Stay on target...
1850 GMT: The Force is strong in this one...
1910 GMT: Great shot, Kid! That was one in a million...
1930 GMT: (Pan to see remaining ships flee blast radius of the Death Star)...
2000 GMT: (Crescendo the finale music...)
2030 GMT: (and blow up the Death Star! yay!)
2030 GMT: This is not the Enceladus we're looking for...move along..move along...