Printable Version of Topic
Click here to view this topic in its original format
Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Saturn _ Visualizing the dimensions of B ring's rising structures
Posted by: Erik Jan 1 2019, 01:12 AM
Hi!
Based on Nasa's data, I made these structures 80 km wide, culminating at 2.5 km for most of them,
in comparison, this little red thing at the bottom on the right of the picture is the Eiffel tower (300 meters high),
stunning moving mountains made of ice particles !
https://ibb.co/F7CyW91
https://ibb.co/Tw4GWD2
https://ibb.co/d6KNXpJ
...and Happy New Year !!!
Posted by: jasedm Jan 1 2019, 12:39 PM
Very nice first post - welcome to the forum.
Posted by: Erik Jan 1 2019, 01:02 PM
Thank you Jasedem, will post again in a short while...
Posted by: scalbers Jan 1 2019, 02:32 PM
This is a very interesting thing to visualize - thanks Erik. Depending on the particle size distribution, clumping and such, I wonder if we should be seeing some more transparent areas at https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/close-views-show-saturns-rings-in-unprecedented-detail? Perhaps this would depend on having a more inclined angle of view and if the clumping is more visible in the https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/postsecondary/features/F_Saturn_Rings_prt.htm rather than the https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/14643/behold-b-ring-clumps/.
Posted by: tanjent Jan 1 2019, 04:20 PM
The Eiffel Tower has a bottom and a top, but remember that there is no up and down in the ringplane, so "structures" is definitely a better term to use than "mountains".
If only it had been possible to photograph both sides at once...
I'm curious whether a hump on this sunlit side is matched by a hump or a cavity on the shadowed "underside"?
Posted by: Webscientist Jan 1 2019, 07:18 PM
That's a fascinating area of the rings of Saturn. One can measure it in your 3D view.
When looking at those rings, I have in mind the phenomenon of clouds on Earth. When you are outside the clouds, they are bright and opaque and when you are inside the cloud, you are in the fog or in the haze but you have some visibility.
That area looks like a Terrestrial landscape but with a different physical logic. Our mind is not used to that.
When I see the shadows of the pseudo-mountains, I think about the snake skin terrain of Pluto and its blades but it has nothing to do with geology.
A fascinating environment that you managed to represent.
Are those pseudo-mountains or waves so round or are they sharper in reality?
Posted by: Erik Jan 1 2019, 07:36 PM
Thanks for the feedback and additional material, if only Cassini had plunged into the Huygens gap to take closer pictures... I can hardly envision the surface of these structures at close range, must be an incredible beautiful chaos to witness....
Posted by: Erik Jan 1 2019, 07:51 PM
When looking at those rings, I have in mind the phenomenon of clouds on Earth. When you are outside the clouds, they are bright and opaque and when you are inside the cloud, you are in the fog or in the haze but you have some visibility.
That area looks like a Terrestrial landscape but with a different physical logic. Our mind is not used to that.
When I see the shadows of the pseudo-mountains, I think about the snake skin terrain of Pluto and its blades but it has nothing to do with geology.
A fascinating environment that you managed to represent.
Are those pseudo-mountains or waves so round or are they sharper in reality?
Nice parallel with the clouds, surely you're right, it makes sense...
I've generated these structures from Nasa pictures so I guess they are pretty faithful, they call them "straws" and I think in reality they are actually sharper (kind of stalagmites ??) , at least for the tall ones, the smaller ones are more round I think, will post more about it these days...
Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)