Thirty Thousand Kilometers Above Enceladus (APOD 17 Mar 08)

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http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080317.html
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Genie: [on the magic carpet] In case of an emergency, the exits are here, here, here, here, here, here anywhere!
Keep your hands and arms inside the carpet!
- quotes for Aladdin (1992)
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<<Features on Enceladus are named by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) after characters and places from the Arabian Nights. Impact craters are named after characters, while other feature types, such as Fossae (long, narrow depressions), Dorsa (ridges), Planitia (plains), and Sulci (long parallel grooves), are named after places. 57 features have been officially named by the IAU; 22 features were named in 1982 based on the results of the Voyager flybys, and 35 features were approved in November 2006 based on the results of Cassini's three flybys in 2005. Examples of approved names include Samarkand Sulci, Aladdin crater, Daryabar Fossa, and Sarandib Planitia.>>
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Samarkand : the country ruled over by Shah Zaman, brother of Shahryar, in Arabian Nights.
Sarandib : Sri Lanka, an island visited by Sindbad on his 6th voyage in Arabian Nights.
Daryabar : the land from which Princess Daryabar came.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_o ... One_Nights
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<<One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة‎ - kitāb 'alf laylah wa-laylah; Persian: هزار و یک شب - Hezār-o yek šab) is a collection of stories collected over thousands of years by various authors, translators and scholars in various countries. These collections of tales trace their roots back to ancient Arabia and Yemen, ancient India, ancient Asia Minor, ancient Persia (especially the Sassanid Hazār Afsān Persian: هزار افسان, lit. Thousand Tales), ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamian Mythology, ancient Syria, and medieval Arabic folk stories from the Caliphate era. Though an original manuscript has never been found, several versions date the collection's genesis to somewhere between AD 800-900.
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What is common throughout all the editions of The Nights is the initial frame story of the ruler Shahryar and his wife Scheherazade (from Persian: شهرزاده generally meaning townswoman) and the framing device incorporated throughout the tales themselves. The stories proceed from this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while others begin and end of their own accord. Some editions contain only a few hundred nights, while others include 1001 or more "nights."
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The collection, or at least certain stories drawn from it (or purporting to be drawn from it) became widely known in the West during the nineteenth century, after it was translated - first into French and then English and other European languages. At this time it acquired the English name The Arabian Nights Entertainment or simply Arabian Nights. The best known stories from The Nights include "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp," "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor." Ironically these particular stories, while they are genuine Middle Eastern folk tales, were not part of the "Nights" in its Arabic versions, but were interpolated into the collection by its early European translators.
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The main frame story concerns a Persian king and his new bride. The king, Shahryar, upon discovering his former wife's infidelity has her executed and then declares all women to be unfaithful. He begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning. Eventually the vizier cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade tells the king a tale, but does not end it. The king is thus forced to keep her alive in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) another. So it goes for 1,001 nights. The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques, various forms of erotica, and Muslim religious legends. Numerous stories depict djinn, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography; the historical caliph Harun al-Rashid is a common protagonist, as are his alleged court poet Abu Nuwas and his vizier, Ja'far al-Barmaki. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly-layered narrative texture.
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The different versions have different individually detailed endings (in some Scheherazade asks for a pardon, in some the king sees their children and decides not to execute his wife, in some other things happen that make the king distracted) but they all end with the king giving his wife a pardon and sparing her life.
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The narrator's standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern literature. While in many cases a story is cut off with the hero in danger of losing his life or another kind of deep trouble, in some parts of the full text Scheherazade stops her narration in the middle of an exposition of abstract philosophical principles or complex points of Islamic philosophy, and in one case during a detailed description of human anatomy according to Galen—and in all these cases turns out to be justified in her belief that the king's curiosity about the sequel would buy her another day of life.>>
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Genie: Thank you for choosing "Magic Carpet" for all your travel needs. Don't stand until the rug has come to a complete stop.
Thank you. Goodbye, now. Goodbye. Goodbye, thank you. Goodbye.

[AnneStokesHochberg]

Just a small thing -

"Exogeologists are currently pouring over this" should be "Exogeologists are currently poring over this"

as in

1. to read or study with steady attention or application: a scholar poring over a rare old manuscript.
2. to gaze earnestly or steadily: to pore over a painting.
3. to meditate or ponder intently (usually fol. by over, on, or upon): He pored over the strange events of the preceding evening.

"pouring" would be what they would do with, say, maple syrup and pancakes

Just my proofreader's eye here...

[Arramon]

*edit

I didnt read correctly.. =b

For Immediate Release: March 13, 2008

CASSINI FLIES THROUGH WATERY PLUMES OF SATURN MOON

NASA's Cassini spacecraft performed a daring flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wed., March 12, flying about 15 kilometers per second (32,000 mph) through icy water geyser-like jets. The spacecraft snatched up precious samples that might point to a water ocean or organics inside the little moon.

Scientists believe the geysers could provide evidence that liquid water is trapped under the icy crust of Enceladus. The geysers emanate from fractures running along the moon’s south pole, spewing out water vapor at approximately 400 meters per second (800 mph).

The new data provide a much more detailed look at the fractures that modify the surface and will give a significantly improved comparison between the geologic history of the moon's north pole and south pole.

New images show that compared to much of the southern hemisphere on Enceladus--the south polar region in particular--the north polar region is much older and pitted with craters of various sizes. These craters are captured at different stages of disruption and alteration by tectonic activity, and probably from past heating from below. Many of the craters seem sliced by small parallel cracks that appear to be ubiquitous throughout the old cratered terrains on Enceladus.

"These new images are showing us in great detail how the moon's north pole differs from the south, an important comparison for working out the moon's obviously complex geological history," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader, Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "And the success of yesterday's daring and very low-altitude flyby means this coming summer's very close encounter, when we get exquisitely detailed images of the surface sources of Enceladus' south polar jets, should be an exciting 'next big step' in understanding just how the jets are powered."

This week's flyby and another one planned for Oct. 9, 2008, were designed so that Cassini's particle analyzers could dissect the “body” of the plume for information on the density, size, composition and speed of the particles. Among other things, scientists will use the data gathered this week to figure out whether the gases from the plume match the gases that make up the halo of particles around Enceladus. This may help determine how the plumes formed.

During Cassini's closest approach, two instruments were collecting data--the Cosmic Dust Analyzer and the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer. An unexplained software hiccup with Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyzer instrument prevented it from collecting any data during closest approach, although the instrument did get data before and after the approach. During the flyby, the instrument was switching between two versions of software programs. The new version was designed to increase the ability to count particle hits by several hundred hits per second. The other four fields and particles instruments on the spacecraft, in addition to the ion and neutral mass spectrometer, did capture all of their data, which will complement the overall composition studies and elucidate the unique plume environment of Enceladus.

Cassini’s instruments discovered evidence for the geyser-like jets on Enceladus in 2005, finding that the continuous eruptions of ice water create a gigantic halo of ice dust and gas around Enceladus, which helps supply material to Saturn’s E-ring.

This was the first of four Cassini flybys of Enceladus this year. During Wednesday’s flyby, the spacecraft came within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the surface at closest approach, 200 kilometers (120 miles) while flying through the plume. Future trips may bring Cassini even closer to the surface of Enceladus. Cassini will complete its prime mission, a four-year tour of Saturn, in June. From then on, a proposed extended mission would include seven more Enceladus flybys. The next Enceladus flyby would take place in August of this year.

Images from the Enceladus flyby are available at: http://ciclops.org, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the U.S., England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team leader (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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Just a small thing -

"Exogeologists are currently pouring over this" should be "Exogeologists are currently poring over this"

as in

1. to read or study with steady attention or application: a scholar poring over a rare old manuscript.
2. to gaze earnestly or steadily: to pore over a painting.
3. to meditate or ponder intently (usually fol. by over, on, or upon): He pored over the strange events of the preceding evening.

"pouring" would be what they would do with, say, maple syrup and pancakes

Just my proofreader's eye here...

<<I remember "Gulliver's Travels.''
A young giantess holds Gulliver in her palm, where he peers into her enormous crater-like pores.>>
http://nasw.org/users/skatzman/gulliver.htm

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If this was a 30k kilometer flyby, wouldnt the next one thats closer be 25k kilometers.... not just 25 kilometers? Or is it going to actually be that freagin close? O.o

"Cassini closed to about 52 kilometers during its closest encounter to date."

[Arramon]

An unexplained software hiccup with Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyzer instrument prevented it from collecting any data during closest approach, although the instrument did get data before and after the approach.

I hate getting hiccups... =b

[NoelC]

I noticed that too. Looks like they've fixed it now.

Funny thing... When I first saw it I very briefly got the distinct image of innumerable dark space-suited scientists pouring out of spacecraft to go see, swarming all over the moon (er, satellite) so that the surface became ultimately blacked out from a macro view, 2001-style... Okay, so I have a vivid imagination. It did make me smile.

Why are the space suits dark? The outer solar system is a cold place!

-Noel

[JohnD]

Ms.Hochberg.

You're a proofreader?

To mistake 'pouring' for 'poring' is a vocabulary error, not grammar!

John the super-pedant

[henk21cm]

Funny thing... When I first saw it I very briefly got the distinct image of innumerable dark space-suited scientists pouring out of spacecraft to go see

English has never been the language my parents taught me nor it was used at primary school. When i was 12 years old, English lessons became part of the curriculum, only three hours a week, so i do not have developed a very sophisticted feeling for it. In my ingnorance i thought that "poring" was the American way to write "pouring", like "government" and "gouvernment", or "neighboring" and "neighbouring".

I had the same visualisation as you Noel, with a slight difference: the spacesuits were white.

Nevertheless AnneStokesHochberg introduced me to a new word.

Regards,
Henk

[JohnD]

Henk,
You use English the way YOU want to use it!
English can take it!

As it has taken innumerable non-English words and made them its own, which is why it is English today. If it were not this extraordinary, adhesive, viral language it would be something like French or German or, maybe, Dutch spoken in London these days! It developes daily and does not suffer from the "Academie Francaise" attitude that a word has a precise and fixed meaning, that cannot be allowed to change. See the partial list of new words and new usages that are in the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/newwords/?view=uk

Compare with the Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française, the ninth edition of which is being compiled. The eight was published in 1935 and the new will include as many as 15,000 new words. 15,000! Oh, wow! That means 50,000 in the whole work.
The OED's last edition, 1989, contained 615,000 entries! And it is updated quarterly, by about 2500 words EACH TIME!!

John

[apodman]

Congress needs to pass a bill making American English the official language of APOD. Then nobody will be misled by words masquerading as Americanisms of Britishisms as long as they keep their dictionaries nearby. And does anybody remember the movie "Tommy" where actress Ann Margaret as Tommy's mother in a white jumpsuit is covered in baked beans spewed from a television set? A more impactful image than drizzling toppings on space suits.

Questions:

(1) How can a lingua franca be other than French?

(2) How can you pick on an APOD contributor when the real evil lies with the illiterate interns they let write the ticker, caption, and title text for CNN, MSNBC, and your local news operation? News media are the major disseminator of language, so what they put out is absorbed and used by the hoi polloi and becomes the standard. The current standard includes what are apparently acceptable levels of error and ignorance. They broadcast it, we accept it, and language quality goes downhill for lack of correct examples and too many incorrect examples for the unwary to follow.

[starnut]

Someone wrote (I forgot who and where):


"The Problem with the English language is that it is as pure as a crib-house w****. It not only borrows words from other languages; it has chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."

(w**** is the pejorative for prostitute)

[JohnD]

apodman,
Your post falls into the same pit as the Academie Francaise, in trying to define English.
Go with the hydra-headed nature of English, enjoy its promiscuity, rather than demand that it is reduced to a classification.

As starnut writes, the great power - not problem - of English is its ability to assimilate foreign words, as it has with that Italian phrase for the French language that rather precisely, though ellipticly, describes a language that is used outside its origin, by people for whom it is not a native langauge. In doing so, it describes itself.

JOhn

[NoelC]

Damn straight, JOhn!

Word!

-Noel

[Arramon]

*whispers*

Enceladus

[JohnD]

Enceladus, son of Gaia?
It is a bit hyperbolic to compare English to one of the Gigantes, but thank you kind person!

Oh, you meant Moon Enceladus!
Yes, back to to astro-business!

John

[Arramon]

It's coming right for us..!!

[AnneStokesHochberg]

No, I'm not a proofreader by trade, but my eye catches a lot of things. And you're absolutely right.

Anne

Ms.Hochberg.

You're a proofreader?

To mistake 'pouring' for 'poring' is a vocabulary error, not grammar!

John the super-pedant

[Andy Wade]

No, I'm not a proofreader by trade, but my eye catches a lot of things. And you're absolutely right.

Anne

My bold.
May I recommend Optrex for that? http://www.optrex.co.uk/

Be careful APOD writers! You could have someone's eye out with that bad grammar/spelling/syntax! (delete as appropriate).



Sorry Anne, just having a laugh. You're absolutely right of course. Education should include key skills wherever possible.

There's an irony here John, did you spot it?

[Czerno]

Compare with the Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française, the ninth edition of which is being compiled. The eight was published in 1935 and the new will include as many as 15,000 new words. 15,000! Oh, wow! That means 50,000 in the whole work.
The OED's last edition, 1989, contained 615,000 entries! And it is updated quarterly, by about 2500 words EACH TIME!!

John

The French vocabulary is not limited to the Dictionnaire de l'Académie either! More importantly, richess of a language is not measured by the (potentially illimited) number of words in any compilation, but by the precision and nuance of thought it is able to convey. I think the main default English (or rather, that lingua franca we are taking of) suffers is its lack of precision and determinacy. True, it can be an advantage in diplomacy, commerce... and other practical fields in which the Anglo-Saxon excel. Not so much in Sciences, I'm afraid. And yes, I have to disclose it, French is my native tongue ;=)

Regards !

--
Czerno