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Posted by: dilo Sep 19 2005, 07:15 PM

This clean-filter narrow-field images ofDione was taken on Sep,16.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS14/N00039619.jpg
There is a strange feature on the left of the moon..
This meteor-like shape is not visible in other images of the same sequence, so it is almost surely a cosmic ray signature, but a very strange one (never seen something like this, before!). Any alternate explanation?
PS: It remind me an image from 2001: a Space Odissey (from the final, unforgottable Bowman's trip through the universe)... do someone else had the same flashback?

Posted by: Bob Shaw Sep 19 2005, 08:35 PM

This clean-filter narrow-field images ofDione was taken on Sep,16.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS14/N00039619.jpg
There is a strange feature on the left of the moon..
This meteor-like shape is not visible in other images of the same sequence, so it is almost surely a cosmic ray signature, but a very strange one (never seen something like this, before!). Any alternate explanation?
PS: It remind me an image from 2001: a Space Odissey (from the final, unforgottable Bowman's trip through the universe)... do someone else had the same flashback?

Posted by: dilo Sep 19 2005, 09:52 PM

Dilo:

Didn't you see the next image in the sequence?

Bob Shaw

Posted by: RedSky Sep 19 2005, 10:23 PM

Maybe its the planet killer cloud interacting with some matter and generating some visible light.

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/wwn/20050912/112653720001.html

Who makes up these stories?! I can see this getting on the evening news and talk shows drawing much alarm. There's just enough that sounds like science to cause the media and public to ignore the "tongue-in-cheek" babble (mangled information chaos cloud produced by Hawking black hole radiation).

Posted by: dilo Sep 19 2005, 10:32 PM

Yes RedSky, I'm disappointed. This article is an obvious joke to us, but most people would believe it's real!... ("Entarteinment & Gossip" classification on the top should suggests the truth, however)

Posted by: Bill Harris Sep 20 2005, 12:57 AM

The guy is obviously a fruitcake...

Posted by: ljk4-1 Sep 20 2005, 02:27 AM

The guy is obviously a fruitcake...


--Bill

Posted by: ljk4-1 Sep 20 2005, 03:01 AM

Sounds like something from The Onion to me.

http://www.theonion.com/content/index

Or from Gregory Benford's SF novel Eater (which I recommend):

http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/books/eater_000317.html

Posted by: Myran Sep 24 2005, 12:31 PM

Posted by: RedSky Sep 24 2005, 01:59 PM

Regarding the killer cloud article... I actually had to try and convince an alarmed friend why it couldn't be real. Besides the incredulous concept of a mangled informational chaos cloud, the astromonical facts were also just as ludicrous.

Since it was traveling "near the speed of light" heading directly toward earth, and is to arrive in 2014 (June 1 at 9:15 am EDT), that means it must be around 8 or 9 light years away! That's twice as far as the nearest star(s). ... and they say they "saw it" obliterate a large asteroid". At that distance... really. And getting an exact trajectory to earth over an 8 ly path... bah.

A 10 million mile wide cloud is a very tiny cloud, indeed. How electrons, or whatever, could hold themselves together in such a "cloud" is totally unknown. The story might have been actually more scary if it said it was a cloud of positrons that would annililate any matter it came in contact with instead of the mangled information chaos bit.

Also, as huge as a 10 million mile cloud might seem to the public, its only about 1/10th the earth-sun distance. It could easily slip through the solar system and never touch a thing.

Anyway, these alarmist jokesters should have a science advisor if they want their "stories" to have legs. That could really be dangerous.

Posted by: mike Sep 24 2005, 11:32 PM

It's an 'article' from the Weekly World News, who also brought us Bat Boy, and Bat Girl, and endless sightings of Bigfoot and Elvis controlling the weather, etc. etc. etc.

It's more of an editorial than anything, except that it purports to be factual, sort of, because it uses certain words, uhh, they never did claim it was true, did they...

Posted by: Reckless Sep 25 2005, 10:06 AM

It's an 'article' from the Weekly World News, who also brought us Bat Boy, and Bat Girl, and endless sightings of Bigfoot and Elvis controlling the weather, etc. etc. etc.

It's more of an editorial than anything, except that it purports to be factual, sort of, because it uses certain words, uhh, they never did claim it was true, did they...

Posted by: ljk4-1 Sep 29 2005, 05:40 AM

Hmmm... at last we have proof that an alien vessel is in orbit around Saturn?

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA07592_modest.jpg

Posted by: Bob Shaw Sep 29 2005, 12:01 PM

Hmmm... at last we have proof that an alien vessel is in orbit around Saturn?

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA07592_modest.jpg

Posted by: RedSky Sep 29 2005, 03:18 PM

Hmmm... at last we have proof that an alien vessel is in orbit around Saturn?
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA07592_modest.jpg

Posted by: ljk4-1 Oct 7 2005, 04:42 PM

That strange alien Saturn probe has appeared again:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07602

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07601

Posted by: dilo Oct 7 2005, 08:24 PM

That strange alien Saturn probe has appeared again:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07602

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07601

Posted by: Jyril Oct 8 2005, 10:19 AM

PIA07601 shows Prometheus, PIA07602 Pandora. They really resemble each other in these views.

Posted by: MizarKey Oct 8 2005, 11:15 PM

RedSky got it part right, Prometheus looks more like Moya from Farscape and Pandora looks more like "Tinman" from Star Trek Next Gen...

Eric P / MizarKey