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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Cassini's ongoing mission and raw images _ Theory about Atlas morphology

Posted by: SigurRosFan Aug 14 2007, 10:00 AM

Abstract:

On June 12, 2007 the Cassini probe sent the images of a small moon of Saturn called Atlas which is located between the ring A and the small ring R/2004 S 1. These images have shown that the Atlas morphology is very different from other moons of similar dimensions. In the present article we propose a reasonable theory, to that we denominated "flying dune", that explains its morphologic characteristics from its magnitudes like mass, diameters and orbital radius, as well as its orbital position and the interpretation of the images caught by the Cassini probe.

- http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.1678

Posted by: volcanopele Aug 14 2007, 01:34 PM

Good grief Well, at least I know what all my emails will be about today...

Posted by: remcook Aug 14 2007, 01:51 PM

is this submitted to any journal? I can't see it anywhere...

mmmm excel plots

Posted by: ugordan Aug 14 2007, 02:06 PM

Umm... the sheer number of typos and plain bad english put me off from reading it through, but the issue I find disturbing is it uses the raw image data that was not yet archived at the PDS. Very unfair to the imaging team. This classifies as an attempted "scoop".

Posted by: elakdawalla Aug 14 2007, 02:32 PM

The text is pretty comical. And he does need to keep his hands off those raw JPEGs -- most of what he needs is in the PDS anyway, it's totally unnecessary. But I gotta hand it to him for coming up with the imaginative "flying dune" descriptor.

--Emily

Posted by: alan Aug 14 2007, 08:22 PM

Article originated from discussion in an astronomy forum:

QUOTE

The model presented here arose as result of the different opinions expressed in an astronomy forum on the web page: www.sondasespaciales.com.

The Internet forums are an excellent way to implement the technique of “brainstorming” that so good results offers in the management companies to solve complex problems. For that reason I want to thank to each and every one of which they were there, in the thread Atlas, sin duda un nuevo misterio, first its ideas and later its aid, support and spirit so that this model got to take shape in the present article.

Posted by: Rob Pinnegar Aug 15 2007, 02:15 PM

QUOTE (ugordan @ Aug 14 2007, 08:06 AM)

This classifies as an attempted "scoop".

That's possible, but it's just as likely that he simply doesn't know any better.

As regards the poor English, well, it's a bit too easy to criticize people from non-English-speaking countries for this kind of thing. You have to cut them some slack; they've got a huge disadvantage here, compared with native English speakers.

A better idea is to concentrate on the science... which, in this case, *isn't* impressive. The first half reads like a high-school science project. I don't care much for the gravity modelling, either.

This isn't going to make it through review, not at any journal with a positive impact factor.