APOD: Views from Cassini at Saturn (2017 Jun 18)

[APOD Robot]

Views from Cassini at Saturn

Explanation: What has the Cassini orbiter seen at Saturn? The featured music video shows some of the early highlights. In the first time-lapse sequence (00:07), a vertical line appears that is really Saturn's thin rings seen nearly edge-on. Soon some of Saturn's moon shoot past. The next sequence (00:11) features Saturn's unusually wavy F-ring that is constrained by the two shepherd moons that are also continually perturbing it. Soon much of Saturn's extensive ring system flashes by, sometimes juxtaposed to the grandeur of the immense planet itself. Cloud patterns on Titan (00:39) and Saturn (00:41) are highlighted. Clips from flybys of several of Saturn's moon are then shown, including Phoebe, Mimas, Epimetheus, and Iapetus. In other sequences, moons of Saturn appear to pass each other as they orbit Saturn. Background star fields seen by Cassini are sometimes intruded upon by bright passing moons. The robotic Cassini spacecraft has been revolutionizing humanity's knowledge of Saturn and its moons since 2004. In September, Cassini's mission will be brought to a dramatic conclusion as the spacecraft will be directed to dive into ringed giant.

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[Jim Leff]

That was great.

We're accustomed to static, calm astronomical images, because we're invariably looking across great distances at large things. It's easy to forget how dynamic it all actually is.

[felixapod]

Tense movie opening. I could almost see the credits. The characters will find out Saturn, itself, is alive.

[Nitpicker]

Cool arthouse cinema. I love it. Cassini won't have a Hollywood ending, either.

[Lasse H]

It could have been an interesting film if it hadn't been for the exaggerated speed. This hysterical compilation doesn't tell me anything...

[RedFishBlueFish]

This set of images almost makes one think there might be something to Copernicus's idea after all.

As the Flagship class robotic space-probe Cassini–Huygens reaches the end of its mission, one cannot help but think of the final words of the infinitely more advanced Nexus-6 robot Roy Batty: All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Thank you for putting together Cassini's moments to share across time.

Evocative.

[Tszabeau]

It could have been an interesting film if it hadn't been for the exaggerated speed. This hysterical compilation doesn't tell me anything...

If you can control your laughter long enough, you can slow the movie down by using your thumb.

[Astronymus]

Too bad you have to install Flash to see it...

[E Fish]

Fascinating views of Saturn. I'm going to be so interested to see Cassini's final moments. Mind-boggling to the end.

[Chris Peterson]

Too bad you have to install Flash to see it...

No you don't. It's an HTML5 video. If your browser is requiring Flash, you're either running a very obsolete system or you have something misconfigured. (Note that it runs fine on mobile devices that don't even offer Flash as an option.)

[Gaplets]

Please feel free to join our ResearchGate project
https://www.researchgate.net/project/Wh ... n-Saturn-2

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Cool arthouse cinema. I love it.

Cassini won't have a Hollywood ending, either.

[sunson]

This set of images almost makes one think there might be something to Copernicus's idea after all.

And the idea is....?

[douglas]

It could have been an interesting film if it hadn't been for the exaggerated speed. This hysterical compilation doesn't tell me anything...

It says "Vimeo Staff Pick" -- don't tell me Vimeo forced Abbas to condense it, and only then was it worthy of a "Staff Pick"??
That's a little unusual as Vimeo has some of the finest videos around.

Some of those phenomena are deserving of serious "grokking in fullness". Some? Most.

/laughter at your "hysterical", very good that was.

[Chris Peterson]

Some of those phenomena are deserving of serious "grokking in fullness". Some? Most.

And there are hundreds of videos and thousands of images out there serving that purpose. But that wasn't the intent of this video. It wasn't supposed to teach us anything about Saturn, but rather, to offer a kind of gestalt view of the Cassini mission, to saturate our senses with the huge range of data that was collected.

[Astronymus]

Too bad you have to install Flash to see it...

No you don't. It's an HTML5 video. If your browser is requiring Flash, you're either running a very obsolete system or you have something misconfigured. (Note that it runs fine on mobile devices that don't even offer Flash as an option.)

Found the problem. NoScript didn't gave the rights. Not obsolete or misconfigured, just too safe. Nice video.

[tekija]

This set of images almost makes one think there might be something to Copernicus's idea after all.

As the Flagship class robotic space-probe Cassini–Huygens reaches the end of its mission, one cannot help but think of the final words of the infinitely more advanced Nexus-6 robot Roy Batty: All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Thank you for putting together Cassini's moments to share across time.

Evocative.

Possibly the most famous improvised line, and moreover ending a brilliant concatenation by the actor of an obviously boring scripted monologue, in movie history:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears_in_rain_monologue

[majoraward]

Amazing. Great Fathers Day present (for me).

[douglas]

Some of those phenomena are deserving of serious "grokking in fullness". Some? Most.

And there are hundreds of videos and thousands of images out there serving that purpose. But that wasn't the intent of this video. It wasn't supposed to teach us anything about Saturn, but rather, to offer a kind of gestalt view of the Cassini mission, to saturate our senses with the huge range of data that was collected.

I've viewed some number of Vimeos and I've never seen one that played at that speed. Many of the images require a moment to orient the spatial setup so stacking them rapid-fire is really not a good idea.

I think what is obvious is Mr. Abbas has certainly expressed he's capable of putting together a very good video, but what we're seeing there is a product of some production pressure. That's what was 'taught'. The gestalt of Cassini is not a hurried presentation, to be sure, nor is it something to the effect of 'they'll take what we give them', now, is it? Nor 'hold your tongue'? Heh.

For what it's worth, it did play slightly slower in Firefox.

[Chris Peterson]

Some of those phenomena are deserving of serious "grokking in fullness". Some? Most.

And there are hundreds of videos and thousands of images out there serving that purpose. But that wasn't the intent of this video. It wasn't supposed to teach us anything about Saturn, but rather, to offer a kind of gestalt view of the Cassini mission, to saturate our senses with the huge range of data that was collected.

I've viewed some number of Vimeos and I've never seen one that played at that speed. Many of the images require a moment to orient the spatial setup so stacking them rapid-fire is really not a good idea.

I think what is obvious is Mr. Abbas has certainly expressed he's capable of putting together a very good video, but what we're seeing there is a product of some production pressure. That's what was 'taught'. The gestalt of Cassini is not a hurried presentation, to be sure, nor is it something to the effect of 'they'll take what we give them', now, is it? Nor 'hold your tongue'? Heh.

Well, Mr Abbas can comment if he'd like, but my take is that it's playing exactly as intended (and personally, I think it works very well this way).

[steve Wiggins]

Has anyone addressed the 72 pounds of plutonium that will soon be dispersed into Saturn's biosphere? Is it too late to re-route Cassini to some known dead moon?

[Chris Peterson]

Has anyone addressed the 72 pounds of plutonium that will soon be dispersed into Saturn's biosphere? Is it too late to re-route Cassini to some known dead moon?

That plutonium (and all the other materials that make up Cassini) are enough to actually contaminate a moon, to damage future science opportunities. It will have no significant impact on Saturn at all, which is so much bigger and already contains plutonium in much greater quantities.

Saturn was specifically chosen as the place to end the mission in order to avoid contaminating small bodies in the Saturnian system.

[distefanom]

Intense...
Also evocative of the 2001 movie, which neufer correctly posted.

Btw, I wonder what are those grey concentric circles can be seen in most of the images, but most of them in the very same place in different images?
Maybe something on the lenses? do stardust can deposit on the lenses/mirrors???

[Gaplets]

@distefanom Dust it is. Called "doughnuts". More dust is collected the longer the mission goes on.

[douglas]

And there are hundreds of videos and thousands of images out there serving that purpose. But that wasn't the intent of this video. It wasn't supposed to teach us anything about Saturn, but rather, to offer a kind of gestalt view of the Cassini mission, to saturate our senses with the huge range of data that was collected.

I've viewed some number of Vimeos and I've never seen one that played at that speed. Many of the images require a moment to orient the spatial setup so stacking them rapid-fire is really not a good idea.

I think what is obvious is Mr. Abbas has certainly expressed he's capable of putting together a very good video, but what we're seeing there is a product of some production pressure. That's what was 'taught'. The gestalt of Cassini is not a hurried presentation, to be sure, nor is it something to the effect of 'they'll take what we give them', now, is it? Nor 'hold your tongue'? Heh.

Well, Mr Abbas can comment if he'd like, but my take is that it's playing exactly as intended (and personally, I think it works very well this way).

Here's his vimeo page,
https://vimeo.com/search?q=chris+abbas

He looks to have added to this, and sped it up.
https://vimeo.com/56694843
Check it out at 1:25 - 1:30, moon looking retrograde from Cassini's perspective? Impossibly cool.
Same moon clip in this one at :50 mark, https://vimeo.com/153636281
Same speed feature in that video, too, so that's artistic license.

A tip to Mr. Abbas: a god of that grandeur is so far beyond words, speaking, or names as to render them useless. In fact, words used to address such a god would be indicative of anxiety in one's relation to that god. Foregone.

Another tip to Mr. Abbas: when your source photographer is a robot, it deprives a viewer of a photo the effect of the human mind's presence in taking the picture. Stacking a robot's pictures makes it very, very hard to be 'telepresent' in the photo. A fast-presented robot stack is beyond a human's capability of appreciation. Perhaps the intent was to celebrate a robot's presence? (slow it down)

And this, https://vimeo.com/37761054
https://vimeo.com/35878660

He has certainly done justice to the exoticness of Saturn's system.