On last weekend’s close flyby of Saturn’s moon, the Cassini robot photographed these giant plumes of ice venting on the sunlit edge. They suggest the existence of underground oceans on the ice world. Cassini also has a video of the auroras on Saturn’s poles, similar to those of earth.
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Posted in Space
Tagged auroras, Cassini, Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations, Enceladus, ice-jet plumes, Saturn
The Saturn was as close as I ever got to buying a GM product. Thank goodness I didn’t:
"…why Saturn flopped: The company had built a popular brand as a sort of feel-good anti-car–vaguely tractor-like, noisy, but made of semi-indestructible plastic by dedicated Tennessee workers and–unique in nearly all of GM–actually reliable. GM threw all this away and filled Saturn showrooms with cars designed to appeal to totally different buyers: rebadged mainstream Opels. They were OK, but creepily overstyled and not so reliable. End of explanation."
I drove a Ford pickup and a Jeep Cherokee, but otherwise have stuck to Volkswagens and Hondas. Whew.
Via Instapundit.
My memories of Pontiacs date back to the chrome behemoths of my childhood in the late ’50s, the ones with a choke on the dashboard, not the look-all-the-same, jelly-bean cars of the past few decades. Never bought one. Drove one once or twice as a rental.
Won’t miss ’em, or the Hummers mentioned here. Or the Saturns, which I considered buying but never did. Going to be amusing watching the bureaucrats and the autoworkers’ union leaders drive GM into the dumper. For philisophical or practical reasons their cars will be pariahs now. Course, wouldn’t be so amusing if I owned a Suburban, or a Tahoe, or one of their pickups. Fortunately, I have a Honda.
Via Instapundit.
Mr. B. said his favorite part of the Fort Davis trip was touring the big green 107-inch telescope at McDonald Observatory on Tuesday and then the Star Party Wednesday night. We timed the sky tour just right, as Wednesday night was clear, not as chilly as Tuesday, and the wind was light instead of stiff. You might, however, rename a Star Party a line party, as you have to stand in line at the various amateur telescopes, and with hundreds of people there during Spring Break, the lines were long. So we packed it in after three viewings: Messier 35, the Orion Nebula, and Saturn. Got another brownie from the visitor’s center Star Date Cafe to share and then drove back down the mountain.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged McDonald Observatory, Messier 35, Oriuon Nebula, Saturn
Saturn’s shadow stretches out across its rings on Jan. 19, 2007. This natural-color view, taken from about 764,000 miles (1.2 million kilometer) away by the Cassini spacecraft was released Thursday. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
Good views of Saturn possible this weekend with a home telescope, two hours after sunset in the Northern Hemisphere, looking east here until it’s overhead by midnight. Should have a good view of the rings as they are tilting towards us.
From SpaceWeather.com: "Saturn is at its closest to Earth: 762 million miles. It thus looks bigger and brighter both to the naked eye [resembling a bright, yellow star] and through a telescope than it will at any other time in 2007."
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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space
Tagged amatuer telescopes, Saturn, spaceweather.com
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
