Re: [GZG] Asteroid fields and the Great Monkey Dance :-D (was: Re: The Great Premeasuring Monkey Dance

On Friday 08 May 2009 15:26:39 Allan Goodall wrote:
> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I agree on both points. I just wanted to point out that more often
than
> > not, the lack of dense #s of asteroids is going to probably be the
rule
> > in most solar systems.
>
> Out of curiosity, what's the density of the material in Saturn's
rings?

Something I edited out of an earlier post was a question about this.
All I've ever seen are either computer models or long range photographs.
What I'd love to see is a photograph taken from within the rings.

Computer animations of Cassini passing through the rings seemed to
suggest high density but very small ice particles, possibly on par
with light snow fall.

However, I've got no idea how much of this was artistic license.

> It's far more dense than the asteroid belt, but I understand we've
> sent probes through the rings before. I don't know if it was "hold
> your breath" time when they did it, but there didn't seem to be enough
> worry that anyone said, "Hey, is this worth doing with our
> multi-million dollar probe?"

They've done it with Cassini[1], and I believe there was a lot of
"is it worth it?" questions raised. Given Cassini has exceeded it's
life expectency by a huge margin, they've since taken a number of big
risks with it in order to get big payoffs in quality of data.

Of course, in NASA view 'risk' differently to FT players...

btw, I found video of the moon Prometheous 'colliding' with the rings:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/video/videodetails/?videoID=163

[1] I've just tried to find evidence of this, and failed. They did
    fly through a gap in the rings during orbital insertion, and
    I've seen animations of a probe (I assume Cassini) flying
    through the rings.

-- 
Be seeing you,			       http://www.glendale.org.uk
Sam.			    Mail/IM (Jabber): sam@glendale.org.uk 
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