« Free CFL From Home Depot on Earth Day | Main | U IN BIG TROUBLE NOW »

April 19, 2007

The Cassini Mission to Saturn

I just listened to a recording of Carolyn Porco's Pop!Tech talk on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn...and was literally in awe at what she was describing.  Even though I was only listening to her describe the mission's up-close brush with Saturn's iconic rings (comprised of house- to dust-sized particles all in perfect equilibrium), the flowing methane-mud lakes on the surface of Titan, and the spewing ice-geysers on Enceladus...I was in complete rapt awe.  I really can't describe it (besides the fact that I've been on a bit of a "wow, aren't we small and insignificant" tear lately).

Her point that the touchdown of the Huygens probe onto the surface of Titan should have be greeted by ticker-tape parades across the globe (" The Huygens probe plunged into a planetary atmosphere farther away from Earth than any other deep space probe has gone before. It was the first spacecraft to land on a moon in the outer Solar System.") but instead was met with one-page news stories for one day is not to be overlooked.

Explore more at the official mission page.

Clampants | April 19, 2007 08:53 AM