Gitzo Loc: Indiana

Anyone here happen to remember when NASA launched the Cassini space craft? I remember it well, but I don't remember what year it was. I ran across this photograph a month or so ago and saved in a pictures folder; (then forgot all about it; )

I must have ten zillion things in that folder, but about an hour ago I happened to be searching for a picture of something else and I ran across this shot again, taken by the nuclear powered Cassini space probe. During the time when the Cassini probe was being built, there was a huge ruckus caused by a bunch of "environmentalist wackos" who had their panties all in a wad over the plutonium powered nuclear reactor that was built to power Cassini.

The thing I never was able to determine about the "enviro-wackos" was exactly "who" (or "what" ) may be in danger of the "deadly radiation" emanated by the plutonium in the reactor? (I don't think there's much "traffic" between "here and there"? )

I forget now how far the Cassini was from Saturn when the picture was taken, ("real close"......like within a few hundred thousand miles maybe; ) but the little "dot" at the tip of the arrow is where we're at.......900,000,000 million miles back towards the Sun.

Planet Saturn "Up Close", Planet Earth 900 Million Miles "Back The Other Way"

Singing Swan

It sure is big out there.

Ambrose Loc: North America

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

—Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Wellhiem Loc: Sunny England.

Something here doesn't quite add up. On average the Earth is just under 93 million miles from the Sun. At the most distant part of it's orbit, its about 94.5 million miles from the sun. If Saturn is 900 million miles from Earth, that would make it 994.5 million miles from the Sun. Where do you get your figure of 900,000,000 million miles from?

user47602 Loc: ip 304.0.0.33.32

they go around in elliptical orbits...it is not a straight line

"The distance to Saturn from our planet is constantly changing as both of the planets travel through space. When the two are closest, they lie approximately 746 million miles (1.2 billion kilometers) apart, or eight times the distance between the Earth and the sun."

Wellhiem Loc: Sunny England.

That still doesn't explain your figure of 900,000,000 million miles. My figure of 94.5 million miles was being generous, taking the farthest distances between the Sun and Earth and Earth and Saturn. As radiation travels through a vacuum at the same speed as light, (186,000 miles a second), it would take 9.5 minutes to reach Earth. That means that any danger is now past, but it was a hell of a gamble. Doesn't seem quite so remote now does it.

Gitzo Loc: Indiana

For once you're right! Apparently, I should have left off the word "million", or else left off the six zeros. (so sue me. )

Frankly, I find it incredible that Cassini's camera was able to resolve an object of a mere 8,000 miles diameter from 900 million miles away.

Checkmate Loc: Southern California

Gitzo stated 900,00,000 TOWARDS the sun, not to the sun. Hope this helps.

Wellhiem Loc: Sunny England.

I did realise that Gitzo meant towards the Sun. I only mentioned the figure of 994.5 million miles as the greatest possible distance in the equation. He has now explained it was a typing error, which is something we all do from time to time. After all you missed out a zero. But I do think that making this sort of error when it involves numbers, is far more serious than spelling mistakes or typos where everybody knows what is meant.

DickC Loc: NE Washington state

Anyway you measure it, that's a long ways!! :mrgreen:

Wellhiem Loc: Sunny England.

Only 9.5 minutes away. :shock:

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Both planets orbit the sun. During those orbits the two planets can experience a "closest" and a "farthest" distance from one another. The closest is approximately 746 million miles (1.2 billion kilometers). At there most distant, just over a billion miles (1.7 billion km). At some point they are probably 900,000,000 miles apart.
--Bob

warwoman Loc: NE Georgia Mtns.

I don't think the enviro-wackos were worried about poisoning the vesuvians, martians, or any other life form out that way, but were concerned with the possibility of a rocket malfunction at launch spreading plutonium here on our blue marble. Not being a scientist, but having slept in a Holiday Inn express last night, I would think that the amount of plutonium needed to power Cassini would be very small indeed. If that's what it took to insure that Cassini would continue to transmit it's info and pics, then I think the risk was worth it! Who knows, with our space program seemingly pivoting away from it's original mission of extending and building onto space successes, and concentrating more on helping solve ideological differences here on earth, pictures from Cassini may be all we have left to look at.

SHUTERED Loc: SO. CAL.

I just find it intriguing that we all like to see these fruits of science, but fail to realize that this nation stretched its mental muscle during the space race. We also complain about military expenditures needed for classified research. Both of these programs, high tech, cost money but produced high employment and trickle down benefits to almost everyone on this planet. We have benefited with products like the P.C., microwave ovens and digital processing chips that amaze everyone including photographers. Why then are we not setting new goals for N.A.S.A. and D.A.R.P.A.? Instead of giving the money away in the form of food stamps ( to be polite )why not generate research programs that will employ todays college grads in a field other than making hamburgers? Carbon fiber, the darling of stealth aircraft is now used in everything from fishing rods to cars for example. :thumbup:

Gitzo Loc: Indiana

You're right on all points, SHUTERED, but you mentioned Food Stamps; I was all in favor of the food stamp program at it's inception, but like all government "give away" programs, it's been a "cash cow" for MANY fraudsters; example.....(true story, BTW) last night, (Sunday evening) the wife and I decided to drive into Brazil ( Indiana that is ) and grab a couple of Chicken sandwiches and a salad at Hardee's; then we stopped down the street at the 24 hour Kroger's Store for a few items; it's always "quiet" on Sunday evening in Kroger's; when we got to the checkout, there was only one young woman getting checked out, but it seemed to be taking the check-out guy forever to get her checked out; I'm never in a hurry, so I'm already reading my copy of Nat Geo that I was buying; I didn't pay much attention to the woman checking out; when we finally got checked out and in the car, the wife asks, "did you notice that woman in front of us? I probably said something like "I don't look at any other women but you, my love" (or some such ) My wife should have been a State Highway Patrol"person"......she "notices" EVERYTHING! So she says....."the reason it was taking so long was because she had TONS of food stamps;" then she says...."did you happen to notice her "nails"? Uh, no....can't say as I paid any attention to her nails, but I couldn't help noticing that she was pretty "big up, front"! "You dog you, leave it to you not to miss anything "up front"! Then she asked..."and did you notice her "toes" ? "Uh...no, I was reading my Nat Geo...., why"? So she says, "you know what it costs for ME to have my nails "done" every other week ? And what a "full pedicure" runs every 3 or 4 weeks? Probably around $100/month averaged out". The "chick" with the $250 worth of groceries had like $300 worth of food stamps, plus she's spending like $150 min a month on he "fingers & toes, and she driving off in a damned late model Lexus!"

(Like I said, the woman should have been a cop! )
Now....all the way home, after already figuring all of this out already...... she's starting to "extrapolate"....."the broad has 6 kids by 4 different "sperm donners", so every time she pops another kid she gets MORE food stamps.....then the dude she's "shacking with" MUST remain "single", (thereby not endangering the ever-increasing supply of "food stamps" )......

We'll probably never know for sure how accurate her "extrapolations" were, but the first part was obvious for anyone who notices things. I used to hear a lot about this topic of welfare and food stamps before my first wife and I were separated, as my youngest daughter had a pretty good job at the County Welfare office for 10 or 15 years; they see all of this on a daily basis; (and all of us taxpayers are "footing the bill" for a lot of "high end welfare fraudsters" on a daily basis also! )