APOD: Earth and Moon from Saturn (2013 Jul 22)

[geckzilla]

Everyone you've ever known is here. Every human who has ever lived -- is here.

This contradicts much of what is said at funerals. Corporeal remains, yes, but I can’t agree any further than that. I regret that I can not (in this forum) offer any consoling words of explanation as to why the above quotation is not completely true.

Bruce, a minister who loves astronomy.

It is completely scientifically true, though. Until you find a way to observe or measure the hypothetical soul leaving the planet, there is no reason to think that it does otherwise. Of course, even if you were to find a way to observe a soul, you would also have to find a way to conclude that it did not go into the Earth (or the Moon? The Moon is included in this photo.) in the process.

[emc]

Caught in the chaos in the market square
I don't know what, I don't know why, but something's wrong down there
Their bodies twistin' and turnin' in a thousand ways
The eyes all rollin' round and round into a distant gaze
Ah, look at that crowd!
Some are jumping up in the air - say "We're drowning in a torrent of blood!"
Others going down on their knees, seen a saviour coming out of the mud
Oh Mother! It's eating out my soul
Destroying law and order, I'm gonna lose control
What can I do to stop this plague, spread by sight alone
Just a glimpse and then a quiver, then they shiver to the bone
Ah, look at them go!
Bunderschaft, you are going daft? Better seal off the castle grounds"
This is Moribund, the Burgermeister, I'm gonna keep this monster down,
Somebody sent the subversive element; going to chase it out of town.
"No-one will tell what all this is about
But I will find out.
This thing's really outrageous, I tell you on the level
It's really so contagious must be the work of the devil
You better go now, pick up the pipers, tell them to play
Seems the music keeps them quiet, there is no other way.
Ah, close the doors!
"We've tried potions and waxen dolls, but none of us could find any cures,
"Mother please, is it just a disease, that has them breaking all my laws,
Check if you can disconnect the effect and I'll go after the cause
No-one will tell what this is all about
But I will find out
I will.

PETER GABRIEL - MORIBUND THE BURGERMEISTER

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

.

One thing this APOD does besides making for a wonderful Monday morning outer space experience is, like the Pale Blue Dot image of long ago, remind me of how small I am in the grand scheme of things.

[Anthony Barreiro]

This is a truly inspiring image! I believe the spirits of Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens may also have been looking back at us, but of course there is no physical way to prove or disprove that belief. In any event, here in Daly City California it was completely clouded over Friday afternoon, so I wore my brightest white shirt to work for nothing!

[JamieWalker]

Just curious... What would Jupiter look like at it's closest approach to Saturn?

[emc]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

.

One thing this APOD does besides making for a wonderful Monday morning outer space experience is, like the Pale Blue Dot image of long ago, remind me of how small I am in the grand scheme of things.

home is a nutshell for many of us

[DavidLeodis]

Streaks Must be those two little fuzzy things to the left of the earth

The "Streaks" are all down the left side of the image, top to bottom...from the edge to about 1/3 across the photo...I thought it was my computer screen at first....

:---[===] *

I don't see those 'streaks' on my monitor but I do see many horizontal bands across the image. As nobody seems to have commented on those bands it would seem that my monitor may probably not be calibrated correctly, though it is correct as far as I'm aware. I wonder if anybody else see those bands?

[emc]

The image has not been calibrated and I wonder if the horizontal bands are due to interlacing.

[BMAONE23]

Just curious... What would Jupiter look like at it's closest approach to Saturn?

The moon is 2159 miles diameter and orbits at 238,606 miles distant. It covers an area of the sky equivalent to 0.5 deg (1/2) deg or 30 arc minutes.
At closest approach to Saturn, Jupiter is roughly 100,000,000 miles away. Given it's size of 88846 miles diameter, at that distance it would cover 0.05 deg or 03 arc min. About 1/10th the apparent size of the moon from Earth

My avatar depicts how they would appear relative to the moon as viewed from earth

[rstevenson]

Streaks Must be those two little fuzzy things to the left of the earth

The "Streaks" are all down the left side of the image, top to bottom...from the edge to about 1/3 across the photo...I thought it was my computer screen at first....

I don't see those 'streaks' on my monitor but I do see many horizontal bands across the image. As nobody seems to have commented on those bands it would seem that my monitor may probably not be calibrated correctly, though it is correct as far as I'm aware. I wonder if anybody else see those bands?

I downloaded the picture and modified it to see what I could see. I increased the Brightness by a factor of 100%, which in my software turns black into about 50% gray. Then I increased the Contrast by 15%. As you can see, this reveals Elvis' name written backwards... er, um, I mean, horizontal streaks. But at no settings could I find any vertical streaks.

earthmoon_cassini_500-modified.jpg (10.55 KiB) Viewed 4692 times

Rob

[DavidLeodis]

Thanks emc and rstevenson for your replies to my post.

[BDanielMayfield]

I would like to express appreciation for the rational comments of Chris and geckzilla in response to my earlier comment. Thanks for the tolerance. Due to my closely held beliefs, I do feel like a bit of a “sheep amidst wolves” here at times.

And to avoid getting a sanctimonious rep and to show that I haven’t lost my sense of humor:

not only can we thank the sun for the earthshine, we can also thank the sun for the moonshine ...

Indeed Ed, many are extremely thankful for moonshine.

[Chris Peterson]

I don't see those 'streaks' on my monitor but I do see many horizontal bands across the image. As nobody seems to have commented on those bands it would seem that my monitor may probably not be calibrated correctly, though it is correct as far as I'm aware. I wonder if anybody else see those bands?

The horizontal bands are caused by electrical noise in the readout and digitization circuitry. It's a known issue with this camera.

[Chris Peterson]

The image has not been calibrated and I wonder if the horizontal bands are due to interlacing.

The camera doesn't have an interlaced readout. The bands are from noise.

[DavidLeodis]

I don't see those 'streaks' on my monitor but I do see many horizontal bands across the image. As nobody seems to have commented on those bands it would seem that my monitor may probably not be calibrated correctly, though it is correct as far as I'm aware. I wonder if anybody else see those bands?

The horizontal bands are caused by electrical noise in the readout and digitization circuitry. It's a known issue with this camera.

Thanks for that explanation Chris.

[BMAONE23]

Nothing worse than Band Noise to disrupt an otherwise harmonious image

[neufer]

Just curious... What would Jupiter look like at it's closest approach to Saturn?

The moon is 2159 miles diameter and orbits at 238,606 miles distant. It covers an area of the sky equivalent to 0.5 deg (1/2) deg or 30 arc minutes.
At closest approach to Saturn, Jupiter is roughly 100,000,000 miles away. Given it's size of 88846 miles diameter, at that distance it would cover 0.05 deg or 03 arc min. About 1/10th the apparent size of the moon from Earth

My avatar depicts how they would appear relative to the moon as viewed from earth

Roughly 100,000,000 miles away (i.e., ~1.1 AU away)...I don't think so.

Bode's Law states that Saturn & Jupiter should be ~4.8 AU apart and Earth & Jupiter ~4.2 AU apart.

The actual orbits make Saturn & Jupiter ~4.34 AU apart and Earth & Jupiter ~4.2 AU apart.

Hence, Jupiter appears slightly larger from Earth than from Saturn.

Jupiter can be as large as 50.1 arc seconds in Earth's midnight sky with an apparent magnitude of -2.94.

Jupiter can be almost that large in Saturn's midday sky but not nearly so bright.

On June 24, 2000 Jupiter was 4.15 AU away from Saturn at a large 47.5 arc seconds but it was only magnitude 5.2 since only a thin Jupiter South Pole crescent was visible in Saturn's midday sky.

Hence, our view of Jupiter is far superior to Saturn's view.

Nothing worse than Band Noise to disrupt an otherwise harmonious image

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 90#p203608

[luigi]

This image makes me wonder about the definition of a double planet. From our point of view and our definition the Moon is a satellite but seen from the distance I wonder if an hypotethical astronomer wouldn't come out with a different definition and think about our system as a double planet.

The Moon is just too close and too big. It's such a strange thing.

[qweasd]

There is a much nicer, higher resolution image here: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i ... 213963.jpg

[Anthony Barreiro]

This image makes me wonder about the definition of a double planet. From our point of view and our definition the Moon is a satellite but seen from the distance I wonder if an hypotethical astronomer wouldn't come out with a different definition and think about our system as a double planet.

The Moon is just too close and too big. It's such a strange thing.

Yes, the Moon is our little sister! The center of gravity of the Earth-Moon system is still inside the Earth, though. Earth gets all the liquid water, atmosphere, and life forms, but the Moon, being younger and smaller, gets more sympathy.

The center of the Pluto-Charon (etc.) system is actually between Pluto and Charon in space, so they're closer to being twins than we are. If we discover one more moon of Pluto, would we call them the seven dwarf planets?

[Anthony Barreiro]

Just curious... What would Jupiter look like at it's closest approach to Saturn?

The moon is 2159 miles diameter and orbits at 238,606 miles distant. It covers an area of the sky equivalent to 0.5 deg (1/2) deg or 30 arc minutes.
At closest approach to Saturn, Jupiter is roughly 100,000,000 miles away. Given it's size of 88846 miles diameter, at that distance it would cover 0.05 deg or 03 arc min. About 1/10th the apparent size of the moon from Earth

My avatar depicts how they would appear relative to the moon as viewed from earth

Roughly 100,000,000 miles away (i.e., ~1.1 AU away)...I don't think so.

Bode's Law states that Saturn & Jupiter should be ~4.8 AU apart and Earth & Jupiter ~4.2 AU apart.

The actual orbits make Saturn & Jupiter ~4.34 AU apart and Earth & Jupiter ~4.2 AU apart.

Hence, Jupiter appears slightly larger from Earth than from Saturn.

Jupiter can be as large as 50.1 arc seconds in Earth's midnight sky with an apparent magnitude of -2.94.

Jupiter can be almost that large in Saturn's midday sky but not nearly so bright.

On June 24, 2000 Jupiter was 4.15 AU away from Saturn at a large 47.5 arc seconds but it was only magnitude 5.2 since only a thin Jupiter South Pole crescent was visible in Saturn's midday sky.

Hence, our view of Jupiter is far superior to Saturn's view.

Skywatchers on Saturn (or, more likely, on one of Saturn's moons), would look forward with gleeful anticipation to Jupiter's greatest illuminated extent and greatest elongation from the Sun.

I'm not too good at math, but I think right now Jupiter is approaching greatest illuminated extent in Saturn's evening sky, and will spend the next couple of Earth years heading toward greatest eastern elongation. In about seven Earth years Jupiter will be at inferior conjunction with the Sun as seen from Saturn, and Saturnian skywatchers will need to find other things to look at.

A very popular skywatching website on Titan would be Cloudy Nights.

[RJN]

Today's APOD has been updated due to a better image being released during the day.
- RJN

[Lambert]

Anyone knows when the full mosaic including Saturn will be out?

Thanks.

[bystander]

Anyone knows when the full mosaic including Saturn will be out?

Thanks.

You can see a preview of part of it here.

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31797

[Lambert]

Anyone knows when the full mosaic including Saturn will be out?

Thanks.

You can see a preview of part of it here.

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=31797

Thanks. Can't wait to see the full picture