Pioneer 11's 'near miss' at Saturn |
Pioneer 11's 'near miss' at Saturn |
Mar 16 2007, 02:56 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 117 Joined: 7-December 06 From: Sheffield UK Member No.: 1462 |
A couple of websites state that Pioneer 11 discovered a new moon of Saturn during its 1979 flyby and nearly collided with it.
http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/CosmosNotes/voyagr00.htm The website says Pioneer 11 missed the previously unknown moon by only a few hundred km. http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/planets/satslid.htm Apparently the spacecraft inferred the moon's existance by the disturbances it created in Saturn's magnetic field. Is this right? Did Pioneer 11 nearly end its mission in an unforseen Deep Impact style crash? -------------------- It's a funny old world - A man's lucky if he gets out of it alive. - W.C. Fields.
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Jun 2 2007, 04:26 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1669 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
The details might be elsewhere in this forum & the internet, but I believe that Janus was also photographed from Earth in 1966 during an edgewise ring presentation. Did it simply take until 1980 to confirm its orbit? I recall the name Janus being used from the 1966 timeframe.
-------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Jun 2 2007, 05:00 PM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
I recall the name Janus being used from the 1966 timeframe. True. The famous French astronomer Audouin Dollfus observed a moon during 1966 when the rings were edge-on which he named Janus. It's thought that this was in fact the Janus (he might have also seen Epimetheus), but confirmation had to wait until Voyager 1. -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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