Saturn, the teacher

Welcome to the "Lord of the Rings"

With Cassini's recent arrival at Saturn, and the recent arrival of the first pictures and data
I was stuck by something, the rings:

Not that they aren't ordinarily a striking thing to behold, often it's the first thing an amateur astronomer sees, when he get his first telescope.

But there is something else. The rings are teachers.

Written in space, by Saturn, and it's moons, are diagrams, of the laws of gravity, electromagnetism, and their interactions.
The Gaps, the waves, the harmonics, all illustrated, before our very eyes.

I remember, when I was a kid in science class, we sprinkled iron filings on a piece of paper, underneath there was a magnet. The Filings would line up in
patterns, depicting the magnet's lines of force, you could "see" the magnetic
field. You could move the magnet around, and make the filings Dance, and stand up on the paper. It was like a toy, but you learned something too!

Now, Saturn is our Magnet, Space is the Paper, and the moons are our fingers. Making those Rings DANCE!

How are we so lucky, to be taught by
watching something that is Music to the eyes?

Science class has started, Pay Attention


Space out





[edit on 6-7-2004 by spacedoubt]

that is an amazing way to look at it, and i've never thought of it in such a way. i think the greatest part are the rings are the braided rings. those are just amazing, to say the least. it really goes to show how when gravity is applied in the right places that anything can happen.

cmdrkeenkid,

Braided rings, I know, How strange. But somehow there is a reason.
Interactions of tiny little moons..Tiny, but there they are!

I have a feeling that there is a HUGE amount of knowledge to be gained.
Just on the rings alone!

I read that the "spokes" in the rings are due to magnetic fields.
Until a animation was produced to show the movement, this was an unknown.

Space

Originally posted by spacedoubt
Braided rings, I know, How strange. But somehow there is a reason.
Interactions of tiny little moons..Tiny, but there they are!

yeah, i've always known them as "shepherd moons." i think that may be the actual technical definition for them, but i really don't know.

hopefully we'll be able to narow down the theories about their formation. i still think that it was a forming moon that got too close and was destroyed. of course, the rings are mainly ice, so the moon could have been something simlar to jupiter's europa.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid

yeah, i've always known them as "shepherd moons."

Thats the term I've always heard as well. Sounds pastoral, doesn't it?
I'm sure that we'll be seeing more of those, as well as some spectacular
animations of the rings rotating..I've seen one animaton, made at the approach.
Thats what triggered me to start this thread..

Originally posted by spacedoubt
Thats the term I've always heard as well. Sounds pastoral, doesn't it?
I'm sure that we'll be seeing more of those, as well as some spectacular
animations of the rings rotating..I've seen one animaton, made at the approach.

it does sound pastoral, but i don't think that that's the intent. they're just called that because they guide the formation and orbits of the rings.

the only animation i've seen so far was the one of cassini passing through the rings, and giving some awesome audio. have there been any others?

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
the only animation i've seen so far was the one of cassini passing through the rings, and giving some awesome audio. have there been any others?

There is another, i've only seen it on Nasa TV...they have been repeating it
a few times a day. It's made from a series of photos, showing the whole Saturnian system.
The rings, the moons, even the bands in the atmosphere, all rotatiing.
I searched the Cassini Website, couldn't find it. I I do, I'll post it!

Space

What find most interesting about Saturns rings are the anomoulous oxygen levels detected
www.space.com...

Originally posted by spacedoubt
There is another, i've only seen it on Nasa TV...they have been repeating it
a few times a day. It's made from a series of photos, showing the whole Saturnian system.
The rings, the moons, even the bands in the atmosphere, all rotatiing.
I searched the Cassini Website, couldn't find it. I I do, I'll post it!

that sounds truely awesome. the only video i've seen was from NASA's website. i don't have cable, so i can't see NASA TV, and being on dialup sort of rules out watching it online. i'm really missing out!

mwm1331,

Thats truly strange. They called it an Oxygen hit, or a huge flood of oxygen.
I wonder, what is the source of the Ogygen? And it happened in January.
I would imagine one of the moons is coughing it up, but how?
What could the mechanism be?