1000 posts ago..., Enceladus plumes identification Options

[dilo]

Just to recall...
In February 2005 a couple of mad team members correctly identified these features in the first flyby images, and one of them wrote: "what about the halo/plume in the bottom? If is real (not due to camera/lens artifacts or bright surface reflections), source probably lies in large meridional fractured regions"
(see here).
At that time, very few believed to this interpretation...

[Decepticon]

I remember that.

[dvandorn]

Yeah -- I also remember Jason assuring us all that it *must* be a camera artifact, since identical "plumes" had been seen on then-recent images of Rhea and Tethys. Of course, over the next few weeks, several people challenged that statement, and Jason backed off from it... but he sounded tremendously certain of it, at first.

-the other Doug

[edstrick]

"Ain't life terrible?"

[Big_Gazza]

Yeah -- I also remember Jason assuring us all that it *must* be a camera artifact, since identical "plumes" had been seen on then-recent images of Rhea and Tethys. Of course, over the next few weeks, several people challenged that statement, and Jason backed off from it... but he sounded tremendously certain of it, at first.

-the other Doug

Maybe Jason was just being coy about an investigation in progress, especially given the cr@p that his bosses gave him about his public revelation on the data recorder failure during the Titan T7 SAR pass over Mezzoramia. Can't blame him of course. I certainly wouldn't risk any unathorised (though indavertant) disclosures if it meant robbing the boffins of their thunder.

Hell hath no fury like a boffin whose scoop is leaked...

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Yes, Dilo was absolutely bang on tgarget -- and really deserves more public recognition for that fact.

[The Messenger]

The credit belongs to Cassini. Dilo gets to have a nice warm fuzzy, and he can put anything he wants in his epitath. (Kinda like a grad student, huh.)

Maybe it is time to revisit the 'lens abberations' on Rhea and Thethys...

[volcanopele]

I'm sorry some of you feel misled regarding the early Enceladus images, but for a number of months, there was significant work performed to make sure what were seeing wasn't some camera artifact, as had been thought when comparing high phase images of various moons. Dilo did end up being right, but that doesn't reduce the significance of carefully examing the images before announcing this type of discovery.

[JRehling]

I'm sorry some of you feel misled regarding the early Enceladus images, but for a number of months, there was significant work performed to make sure what were seeing wasn't some camera artifact, as had been thought when comparing high phase images of various moons. Dilo did end up being right, but that doesn't reduce the significance of carefully examing the images before announcing this type of discovery.

Absolutely. There are camera artifacts, so it's nice to have a reason for saying that something is a real, but wispy feature, and not an artifact -- some reason other than, "I think so."

You know, the human visual field has excellent acuity only near center, and maximum sensitivity to dim light sources a little off center, but maximum sensitivity to motion way out in the periphery. And the design works: if something requiring your attention happens to the side, your attention is alerted, and then the fovea can point at the disturbance to decide what it is. At its best, amateur Internet attention to these things is like the peripheral vision of the community. It gets the fovea's attention.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

The credit belongs to Cassini. Dilo gets to have a nice warm fuzzy, and he can put anything he wants in his epita[ph]. (Kinda like a grad student, huh.)

I'll preface this by stating that I haven't read the thread in question. Having said that, I agree with the above, though there are various degrees of "credit." As for this particular discussion group's dynamics, Dilo, as you say, gets an attaboy/attagirl for noting the imagery. However, Dilo would also probably have to prove that someone else in some other discussion forum (e.g., USENET, a cybercafe in Romania, etc.) didn't note it even earlier.

As for true scientific credit, Dilo is out of luck in this instance. If he/she had posted as much detail here as the Cassini instrument teams did in their papers in Science, then a case might be made. Without having read the thread in question, I'm assuming that didn't happen.

[dilo]

Hold on guys! I don't want ABSOLUTELY to claim that this was discovered be me (and edstrick too).

When I posted this thread, my implicit intention was to underline my joy to see that, sometimes, hypothesis we formulate here can be correct and, anyway, discussion generated by these ideas can be very stimulating by itself.
Thrust or not, I'm very far from reproaching Volcanopele, who made a fantastic work here and in his blog.
I understand all the precaution needs before formal, public announcement.
When Cassini Team planned to take these pictures more than one year ago, they probably aimed to see plumes... So, discovery belongs to this people!
And I want to express my deep gratitude to NASA for immediately publishing these images without filters, letting use to enjoy them and formulate our speculations, without the constraints of a scientific publication.
And deep gratitude to Doug for the opportunity to express them.

Hope now is clear and sorry for possible misinterpretations...!

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Hold on guys! I don't want ABSOLUTELY to claim that this was discovered be me (and edstrick too).

dilo, you and edstrick (I assume without knowing the history of the discovery) do deserve props from us here in UMSF for your sharp eyes.

BTW, your humble, self-effacing, and polite attitude probably eliminates you from one career field: space journalist/pundit.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

BTW, your humble, self-effacing, and polite attitude probably eliminates you from one career field: space journalist/pundit.

"I will do such things --
What they are I know not -- but they shall be
The terrors of the Earth!"
-- Shakespeare

[dilo]

"I will do such things --
What they are I know not -- but they shall be
The terrors of the Earth!"
-- Shakespeare

amen.

[edstrick]

Anyway, it's awfully tiring to go around with canary feathers sticking out of the corner of one's mouth.