Stunning View From High Above Saturn
“This portrait looking down on Saturn and its rings was created from images obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Oct. 10, 2013. It was made by amateur image processor and Cassini fan Gordan Ugarkovic. This image has not been geometrically corrected for shifts in the spacecraft perspective and still has some camera artifacts.”

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

9 replies on “During The Stupid Shutdown The Universe Continued to Be Awesome”

    1. The Europa mission will involve a pretty complicated and large craft but mostly Cassini and Galileo are last of a breed. They were huge robotic vehicles akin to the 50s model cars with a lot of chrome and flare. Modern electronics has shrunk the size of robotic vehicles. CubeSats are here and vehicles like LADEE that weigh altogether 500 lbs or less.

      1. Modern electronics has shrunk the size of electronics to be sure. But, the instruments have optics, antennas, magnetometers, and whatever else is required to collect data. Those cannot be shrunk arbitrarily. You can’t beat aperture when it comes to imaging. We can talk to Voyager because it has a 30+dB high gain antenna that has to be as big as it is.

        Is the Europa mission going to happen? I thought it got axed…

        1. The Europa mission will eventually happen. One can pretty much blame the $7B cost overrun of JWST on postponing it and some others.

          All of those instruments you mentioned have also gotten smaller. Why do you think DoD gave NASA two Hubble class spy telescopes? Modern electro-optics has permitted DoD and NASA to build imagers that are smaller and more compact. Even spectrometers have gotten considerably smaller (Cubesat sized). Telecommunications will switch to laser beams and large dishes like Voyager won’t be needed for distant trips. Magnetometers (~1 nTesla sens.) are available that are about 1 cm cubed.

    3. spacecraft don’t require kidneys – jk
      btw – we got one coming into view in a few years when New Horizon’s gets to Pluto and sends back HiDef images

      1. I didn’t say it’d be my kidney. 😉

        I agree about New Horizons but it is already underway. I was thinking about future exploration missions apart from Mars. And also my usual jag about real science and exploration missions vs. HSF/ISS/Orion.

      2. I sure wish New Horizons could have had the ability to go into orbit around Pluto!!! Sure seems a waste to only do fly by?

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