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Exploitcorporations
Yes, it's time to Rock the Inner Geek and proclaim your love for what you consider to be what's hot and what's...well, boring in terms of planetary excitement. Criteria may include dynamicism, color, scale, grandeur, crater-counting wrist torture, budgetary reality, and whatever else you might consider relevant. I'll open with my own picks, without giving any particular reasons. (Earth can count if you like)

In descending order...

Most Interesting:

1.) Io
2.) Titan
3.) Europa
4.) Enceladus
5.) Mars
6.) Triton
7.) Venus
8.) Pluto
9.) Dione
10. Iapetus


Least Interesting:

1.) Rhea
2.) Luna
3.) Mercury
4.) Oberon
5.) Mimas
6.) Tethys
7.) Callisto
8.) Ganymede
9.) Earth
10.) New Jersey
volcanopele
hehe

Most Interesting:
1) Io
2) Titan
3) Triton
4) Enceladus
5) Venus
6) Earth
7) Miranda
8) Ganymede
9) Vesta
10) Pluto

Least Interesting:
1) Europa
2) Mars
3) Tethys
4) Rhea
5) Callisto
6) Mars
7) Mercury
8) Charon (in my mind, it looks exactly like Rhea)
9) The Moon
10) Pasiphae

(EDITL Replaced Hati with the Moon)
Exploitcorporations
biggrin.gif Bonus points for listing Mars twice, and equating Charon with Rhea is thought-provoking. Europa provokes deathmatch in the alley behind Pizza Hut of your choice. I'm slow and uncoordinated, so play nice.
Cugel
My list, kind of search-for-life centered I think....

Most:

1.Exo planets
2.Mars
3.Enceladus
4.Titan
5.Europa
6.All other, except...

Least:

1.Low Earth Orbit
2 to 10.The Moon
ngunn
Most interesting:

Earth
Titan
Mars
Venus
Sedna
Ganymede
Europa
Io
Triton
Iapetus

I refuse to name boring ones - there aren't any.
Toma B
I can't believe that some of you put Moon in the "Most boring" part of your lists... sad.gif

Here's my list. I will put no numbers because they are all most interesting in they own way.

Most Interesting:

Io
Jupiter
Mars
Europa
Titan
Moon (buy yourself a telescope)
Enceladus
Iapetus
All Asteroids/Comets (Ida,Gaspra,Eros,Itokawa,Tempel 1,Halle-Bopp...)
Sun

This list does not contain Ceres,Vesta,Lutetia or Pluto because they are not explored/seen by spacecrafts yet but they are damn interesting to me...

Most boring:
Sorry but I cannot think of any Solar System object that would easily fit here...
djellison
I can't think of a single body in the solar system that I'd find boring.

Doug
Bjorn Jonsson
I echo what Doug said (and no, I'm not forgetting about Rhea).

Interesting ones in very approximate/crude order by how interesting they seem:

Titan
Io
Jupiter
Europa
Saturn
Enceladus
Triton
Uranus (!)
Venus
Mars
Neptune
Vesta
Pluto
Miranda

I was unable to limit myself to only 10 bodies.
akuo
As most interesting: Comets! Possibly the most active orbiting objects in the solar system. Especially Churyumov- Gerasimenko with the arrival of Rosetta. I cried after observing the many seperate components of the comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 and realising only afterwards that it would have been the target of the (failed) COUNTOUR mission.
OWW
From most to least interesting:


Terra
Titan
Mars
Venus ( I'm sure, were there pretty MER-like surface panoramas, it would be very popular )
Triton
Io
Enceladus
Europa
Miranda
Ganymede
Luna

.......all known asteroids

Dione
Ariel
Titania
Callisto ( the fact that it's 'melting' saves it from total boredom )
Mercury
Iapetus ( it's Rhea's twin sister. Only with lousy make-up and a love handle around the waist )
Oberon
Umbriel
Tethys
Mimas ( that whole death-star routine doesn't fool me )
a frozen corpse in the morgue
Rhea
tedstryk
I started with a list, but I realized that there were no major moons, planets, or kuiperoids I left off. I have dificulty with the "boring" thing. Rhea, for example, isn't all that exciting in and of itself, buut understanding why it evolved so much differently than Dione, with Tethys in the middle, is fascinating.
Rob Pinnegar
Well, here we go.

Most interesting: Titan, Mars, Io, Europa, Triton, Saturn's rings, Iapetus, Enceladus, Miranda, Venus.
honorable mention: Hyperion, Ganymede, Ariel, Luna, Vesta (#11-15)

Least inspiring: Rhea, Tethys, Oberon, Umbriel, Uranus, Mercury, Saturn proper, Mimas, Ceres, Dione.

And making up a new category:

Most interesting *for its size*: Hyperion, with Enceladus and Miranda close behind (Phobos, too).

Least interesting *for its size*: Saturn. Something with 95 Earth masses can do better. Uranus is a close second, though.
ugordan
QUOTE (Rob Pinnegar @ Jun 7 2007, 02:57 PM) *
Least interesting *for its size*: Saturn. Something with 95 Earth masses can do better. Uranus is a close second, though.
You can't blame the planet for high altitude hazes obscuring interesting cloud dynamics. Blame the temperature!

For me, I can't really select favorite places in the solar system because each of the places is unique, but I can select a random few I find boring less interesting (mostly from an aspect of "wow, nothing interesting happened here for ages AND it's visually dull (i.e. no color variation whatsoever)"), in no particular order:

Moon, Mercury, Mimas, Rhea, Uranus (though the equinox did bring some life to it). Tethys and Dione.. well, they're also dull, but Dione has a dark stain and "wispy" terrain and Tethys has the orangish splat so from an imaging standpoint it pulls them out of the brink for me. There's also a few Uranian moons I find less than awe-inspiring but at least they're brownish in color!
jaredGalen
Quote of the Day for ugordan!
"You can't blame the planet for high altitude hazes obscuring interesting cloud dynamics. Blame the temperature!"

Only at UMSF, smile.gif classic smile.gif
ugordan
The ironic part is I included Uranus in the boring list and yet the same don't blame it statement could be said about that planet as well. smile.gif
ElkGroveDan
I find the denigration of Ceres as an object of interest to be puzzling. The fact that so little is known, yet before long we are about to find out so much is what is drawing me. Let's face it, the most interesting item in your house when you were a kid was an unwrapped Christmas present the day before Christmas. Those vague tantalizing Hubble images just add to the excitement -- as thought the present was wrapped with slightly transparent paper.

Right now Ceres is the MOST interesting object in the Solar System.

If I had to list an uninspiring object, I'd have to say it would be Comet Kohoutek, but then most of you kids won't remember that big let-down.
brellis
Most dull and uninteresting object in the solar system? Paris Hilton mad.gif
lyford
QUOTE
(Toma B @ Jun 7 2007, 02:03 AM) *I can't believe that some of you put Moon in the "Most boring" part of your lists... sad.gif

Well, the most boring was done by Apollo and the Lunakhod missions on the moon.... but I don't think that's what he meant. blink.gif

I have to agree that the question "What is the most boring object in the solar system?" doesn't make sense to me, unless we stretch the definition of objects to include television about celebrity heiresses.

EDIT - DOH - brellis beat me to it.....
Exploitcorporations
I clearly could have phrased the topic/question better. biggrin.gif Absolutely true that each world is fascinating in it's own right, but I was aiming for personal tastes. ( I've spent a fairly disporportionate amount of time sorting and staring at pictures of Rhea unsure.gif ) An entirely seperate poll based on percentage of hard drive space occupied would paint a different picture too.
dvandorn
Now, see, I'm in the camp that every solar system object is interesting. I think Luna is *tremendously* interesting -- all you guys and gals who think that samples returned from eight sites, and varying degrees of in-situ measurements from another six or seven, means we know everything we need to know about the place, are just plain misguided... Luna is more the norm than the exception in this system, and we can learn a LOT more from it that will apply to other bodies, such as Mercury and the asteroids.

There are very definite classifications of bodies, too, each of which holds its own fascination. Vacuum-shrouded rocky bodies; rocky bodies with atmospheres; small rocky bodies; small icy bodies; large gas bodies; and large ice and gas bodies. Each has its own general set of processes, each has its own general set of geological conditions. (Titan, as a small icy body with an atmosphere, is sort of in a class by itself...)

Even Rhea, with the interesting organization of its crater chains, holds some interest for me. I'm still convinced that a lot of Rhea's crater chains are endogenically controlled...

-the other Doug
Juramike
My preferences based on hard drive storage percentages:

58% Titan
20% Europa/Ganymede/Callisto
17% Mars
3% Exoplanets
1% Enceladeus
1% Venus

-Mike
volcanopele
LOL let me try that out. No percentages, just the raw numbers. I should also point out that this is on my laptop, not my work computer as that would skew Titan's numbers considerably...

Io: 5.39 GB
Ganymede: 15.4 MB
Titan: 1.30 GB
Enceladus: 717 MB
Rhea: 35.8 MB
Dione: 92.6 MB
Tethys: 64.8 MB
Saturn: 18.2 MB
Phoebe: 18.0 MB
Mimas: 11.8 MB
Iapetus: 62.1 MB
Triton: 14.0 MB
ugordan
There's a slight hint of you being an Io fan right there.
Exploitcorporations
(Expletive deleted), that really does skew the balance!!!

Mars 6.56gb
Terra 1.54gb
Europa 1.22gb
Titan 843mb
Luna 751mb
Venus 496mb
Io 352mb
Saturn 302mb
Mercury 291mb
Enceladus 234mb
Pavel
Most Interesting:
1) Europa
2) Titan
3) Mars
4) Ganymede
5) Ceres
6) Venus
7) Io
8) Eris
9) Vesta
10) Sedna

I just cannot call anything boring. If it seems boring, it means we know too little about it to be intrigued.
nprev
What's very telling is VP's space allocated to Mars, which would be not so much as a single bit... laugh.gif laugh.gif laugh.gif

My top ten, in descending order (I don't store many images, actually):

1. Titan
2. Mars
3. Io
4. Europa
5. Triton
6. Enceladus
7. Miranda
8. Hyperion
9. Luna
10. Puck

My bottom ten:

1. Rhea
2. Rhea
3. Rhea...(well, you get the idea...) I feel kind of sorry for any future colonists from there; Rhea is definitely the North Dakota of the Solar System. rolleyes.gif

All that said, I agree with ElkGroveDan; Dawn may (in fact, almost certainly will) reveal some real surprises from Ceres and Vesta...to say nothing of the Pluto system from NH. Many lists will be reshuffled!
volcanopele
QUOTE (nprev @ Jun 7 2007, 04:26 PM) *
What's very telling is VP's space allocated to Mars, which would be not so much as a single bit... laugh.gif laugh.gif laugh.gif

I do have the USGS labeled Europa map...
QUOTE
3. Rhea...(well, you get the idea...) I feel kind of sorry for any future colonists from there; Rhea is definitely the North Dakota of the Solar System. rolleyes.gif

And Io is the Texas of the Solar System, and Mars and Europa can fight over the title of California of the Solar System. Titan is a combination of Minnesota and Arizona.

QUOTE
All that said, I agree with ElkGroveDan; Dawn may (in fact, almost certainly will) reveal some real surprises from Ceres and Vesta...to say nothing of the Pluto system from NH. Many lists will be reshuffled!
I have included Vesta, Pluto, and Charon on my lists. Though to be honest, I fear Vesta will be like a mini-Moon, only with a giant hole at the South Pole - heavily cratered with mare filling in some of the larger impact basins. My listing of Pluto and Charon are based on my own imaginings of those two worlds. I imagine Pluto as a cross between Triton and Dione. Imagine Dione's varying crater density, fracture systems, but with Triton's polar caps and volatile cycle. I imagine Charon as much like Rhea, with a large impact basin in the northern part of its leading hemisphere.
nprev
You sure Io isn't the Hawaii of the Solar System? Mauna Loa, after all... tongue.gif
Mongo
I am taking a similar post I made here several years ago, which was about my personal 'top 12' moons, and adding in planets and minor planets as appropriate. The top 10 in that combined list are as follows:

1: Titan
2: Earth
3: Europa
4: Venus
5: Io
6: Mars
7: Triton
8: Jupiter
9: Neptune
10: Luna

Bill
edstrick
"...If I had to list an uninspiring object, I'd have to say it would be Comet Kohoutek...."
Hey!.. I SAW Khoutek... 6" home assembled Edmonds telescope.

Most boring object in the solar system...

At the moment: PARIS HILTON!
mchan
Based on where I would like to see umsf craft go further explore --
1. Titan
2. Mars
3. Enceladus
4. Europa
5. Io
6. Vesta
7. Ceres
8. Triton
9. Pluto
10. Miranda

Boring: I have to agree with most of the folks here, Rhea.

Hey, Paris Hilton was the leadoff story on network news tonight. If you can't beat them, I'd say join them. Let's rename Opportunity as Paris Hilton! Ducks.
Toma B
QUOTE (Rob Pinnegar @ Jun 7 2007, 03:57 PM) *
Least inspiring: Rhea, Tethys, Oberon, Umbriel, Uranus, Mercury, Saturn proper, Mimas, Ceres, Dione.

How can you say that for Ceres when it has not been imaged better than 30km/pix...
From what I can see in these HST images it is very intersting.
I can't wait for Dawn to do some up close inspection...

QUOTE
A study led by Peter Thomas of Cornell University suggests that Ceres has a differentiated interior: observations coupled with computer models suggest the presence of a rocky core overlain with an icy mantle. This mantle of thickness from 120 to 60 km could contain 200 million cubic kilometres of water, which is more than the amount of fresh water on the Earth.


Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment
djellison
That's the flaw in this debate. What is intrigue, what is interesting etc. The less we know about something (up to a point) , the more intriguing it becomes. The Columbia Hills were a point of intrigue when we landed, then they became interesting after we arrived.

Ceres is certainly full of intrigue right now - with the tiny HST images just saying "look - I could be all sorts of things - come see". Does that intrigue defy the realty of what may be an uniteresting world - or can any world not yet explored be considered uninteresting.

It's an interesting issue...intruigingly.

Doug
ugordan
I have a feeling Ceres can't turn out as boring as Rhea even if it tried. Just look at color/albedo variations in that HST composite. Even if it turns out to be completely ancient geologically, at least visually it'll be interesting.
ngunn
QUOTE (djellison @ Jun 8 2007, 10:39 AM) *
That's the flaw in this debate. What is intrigue, what is interesting etc.


I wasn't thinking in terms of a debate, just a light-hearted exchange of highly subjective personal impressions. 'Interesting' to me can mean anything from very familiar but magnificently complex and beautiful (Earth's biosphere) to right-on-the-edge-of-the-observable and pregnant with intriguing possibilities (Sedna).

I think another factor that probably influenced my list was the realistic potential for more to be revealed within the next few decades. (How exactly does the machinery of terrestrial life operate? What is consciousness? Is there any sign of life on Mars? Does Titan posess an evolved ecosystem with broken symmetries - chirality? - and sub-systems maintained in stasis but out of equilibrium? Is Sedna the tip of a new iceberg as Pluto has turned out to be? Did it form around the Sun or was it captured from elsewhere? - all questions we can think about addressing now.)

One day we may be able to explore the deep interiors of the giant planets. They will be extremely interesting when that time approaches, but in the meantime . . .
David
Rather than just list "most interesting" objects, it might be helpful to say why they are interesting.

I think a solar system object is more interesting if it has:

1. Presently flowing liquids on its surface (Titan)

2. Formerly flowing surface liquids (Mars)

3. Subsurface liquids (Europa, Mars?)

4. Meteorologically interesting atmosphere (Mars, Titan, Venus; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune)

5. Present geological/cryological(?) activity (Io, Enceladus - Triton? Venus? Titan??)

6. Past (but not ancient in terms of the age of the Solar System) geological activity (Mars, Venus)

7. Older geological activity with interesting results (Iapetus etc.)

So I guess I find a world more interesting if it has something going on, some kind of movement or activity, now -- rains and rivers on Titan, volcanoes on Io, dust devils on Mars. I don't find floating rocks like Jupiter XLIX (or whatever they're up to now) to be particularly interesting. I am not particularly moved by asteroid classifications. The Kuiper Belt leaves me cold. (Joke!) I'm interested to see what NH finds at Pluto, but only on the supposition that it's something more than just a big, frozen iceball.
Pavel
Perhaps instead of "most boring objects" we should be talking about "most overrated objects", i.e. those that receive too much attention compared to other objects. I nominate Enceladus for the first spot.
lyford
Good distinction, Pavel! Which object is unduly hogging the public spotlight?

(Though I might quibble with your first choice for purely aesthetic reasons that will become clearer in a future thread....)
J.J.
^
Agree with Pavel...I don't think anything in the Solar System is truly boring, but I do think many things are overrated. That said, that doesn't mean I think the overrated places don't have plenty of great science potential.

Faves:
1.) Earth (as someone with a lifelong interest in geology, I could never consider the Earth boring)
2.) Jupiter
3.) Europa
4.) Titan
5.) Venus
6.) Uranus
7.) Mercury
8.) Any long-period comet
9.) Any NEO
10.) Iapetus

Overrated:
1.) Mars
2.) Enceladus
3.) Io
4.) Phobos
5.) Any short-period comet
6.) Any KBO (except Pluto and Sedna)
7.) Triton
8.) The Moon
9.) Interplanetary dust
10.) Rhea

Picking the last two was a real bear...

The Sun, main-belt asteroids, Pluto, and Neptune fall in between the two extremes.
volcanopele
Io...overrated.... blink.gif mad.gif oohhh, it's on!

laugh.gif

Seriously, I am with you on Phobos. Can someone please tell me why the Soviets/Russians were/are so interested in Phobos?!?
AlexBlackwell
QUOTE (volcanopele @ Jun 8 2007, 07:51 AM) *
Seriously, I am with you on Phobos. Can someone please tell me why the Soviets/Russians were/are so interested in Phobos?!?

Genuine scientific interest combined with a chance for a "first" at Mars (i.e., something the U.S. had not done nor shown much interest in pursuing).
Exploitcorporations
This whole exchange gave me another bright idea. This is at a quarter scale and some of the images are placeholders. I'll get the full scale one up at a free hosting site later.

Click to view attachment
Rakhir
Very nice !
ngunn
I agree, that's beautiful, but please can we have captions or a key or something? I recognise quite a few of them but not all.
OWW
QUOTE (ngunn @ Jun 8 2007, 10:33 PM) *
please can we have captions or a key or something?


My best guess:

Moon, Io, Europa, Tethys, Earth, Venus, Mars, Io, Saturn, Venus,
Io, Earth, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, Mars, Eros, Earth, Mars, Jupiter,
Jupiter, Itokawa, Neptune, Saturn, Earth, Mercury, Europa, Dione, Ganymede, Titan,
Venus, Sun, Dione, Moon, Rhea, Earth, Earth, Triton, Titan, Enceladus,
Mars, Tempel 1, Earth, Callisto, Io, Enceladus, Saturn, Phoebe, Mars, Hyperion,
Phobos, Earth, Miranda, Hyperion, Iapetus, Saturn, Mars, Earth, Moon, Earth,
Callisto, Ganymede, Titan, Mars, Earth, Earth, Io, Triton, Iapetus, Mars.
AlexBlackwell
QUOTE (ngunn @ Jun 8 2007, 11:33 AM) *
I agree, that's beautiful, but please can we have captions or a key or something? I recognise quite a few of them but not all.

If you need captions, then you're not a true space cadet biggrin.gif
Exploitcorporations
Sorry about the captions, ngunn...OWW is correct on the identifications.I'm a real space cadet, but in a totally different way. biggrin.gif The toughest one would probably be the second image on the top row of the Tohil Montes on Io. I love that image in particular, part of a five-frame mosaic from I32 in October 2001. I put it above Everest for the echo effect. I was actually working on a key sheet to go with the poster with the place names included (not like the GRS needs an introduction).

VP, I'll tag-team with JJ against you in the deathmatch just on principle. laugh.gif I did like the "California of the solar system" statement, though. It has the ring of truth. On second thought here...JJ, when has Rhea ever hogged the public spotlight?!? Here? blink.gif
OWW
QUOTE (Exploitcorporations @ Jun 9 2007, 06:19 AM) *
Sorry about the captions, ngunn...OWW is correct on the identifications.

No, I was not. Fourth row, Seventh picture. That's not Earth, It's Titan. And Bottom row, Sixth picture is Venus. Don't be mad, it was late. tongue.gif

QUOTE (Exploitcorporations @ Jun 9 2007, 06:19 AM) *
I'm a real space cadet, but in a totally different way. biggrin.gif

Maybe 'Space Geek' is a better term. biggrin.gif
volcanopele
QUOTE (Exploitcorporations @ Jun 8 2007, 10:19 PM) *
The toughest one would probably be the second image on the top row of the Tohil Montes on Io. I love that image in particular, part of a five-frame mosaic from I32 in October 2001.

Come on, if people didn't know that was the peak of Tohil Mons just to the southeast of Radagast Patera, well, then I just can't help them. I did have some difficult telling on some images whether they were of Mars, or a desert on Earth...
Thu
Here're my favourite places tongue.gif

1. Titan's seas (imagine the strange waves you'll see)
2. Underground ocean on Europa
3. The Face on Mars, the Inca site, the Dome, the Pyramid... the Cydonia region, Mars
4. The newly found cave on the flank of Arsia Mons, Mars (I wonder what's inside?)
5. Triton
6. Pluto&Charon
7. Iapetus
8. South Pole of the Moon
9. LEO
10. Earth

To me there're no boring places in the SS but I'd rather call them my least preferred places to visit wink.gif
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