Geysers

[neufer]

Cassini's Enceladus encounter,
Nov. 2, 2009 | 21:10 PST | Nov. 3 05:10 UTC

Just as all the American space buffs were preparing for bed (and after Europeans should have been asleep), raw images from Cassini's close pass by Enceladus today started appearing on the JPL raw images website, and some less-compressed versions of a few of them showed up on the CICLOPS website. As usual, Enceladus presents a spectacular landscape. First, here's a lovely one with the crescent barely sunlit, the night side glowing with Saturnshine, and the south polar plumes brilliantly lit with backlight. (I rotated this one 180° to put south at the bottom.)

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091003.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070807.html

Crews containing geyser from broken LA water main (AP) – 17 hours ago


LOS ANGELES — Work crews have significantly reduced a towering fountain of water gushing onto a Los Angeles street from a ruptured water main. The city's Department of Water and Power says the 54-inch water main sent thousands of gallons of recycled water pouring onto Van Nuys Boulevard on Monday. The break sent water far above the roofs of nearby businesses. No injuries or building damage were reported. Utility spokeswoman Gale Harris says the cause is being investigated. She says the pipe carries recycled water for irrigation and industry.

[neufer]

Cassini's Enceladus encounter,
Nov. 2, 2009 | 21:10 PST | Nov. 3 05:10 UTC

Just as all the American space buffs were preparing for bed (and after Europeans should have been asleep), raw images from Cassini's close pass by Enceladus today started appearing on the JPL raw images website, and some less-compressed versions of a few of them showed up on the CICLOPS website. As usual, Enceladus presents a spectacular landscape. Here's one with some cool contrast between the fissured and folded terrain of the south and the cratered but still mildly tectonized terrain of the north (rotated again):

[geckzilla]

That first photo of Enceladus is great. I am trying to picture in my mind how the light could possibly be bouncing from Saturn but can't seem to figure it out. I must have some basic piece of the puzzle wrong but I don't know which.

[canuck100]

That first photo of Enceladus is great. I am trying to picture in my mind how the light could possibly be bouncing from Saturn but can't seem to figure it out. I must have some basic piece of the puzzle wrong but I don't know which.

I think that the Saturnshine is just reflecting of its clouds and making surface on the dark side of Enceladus visible in the region near the crescent. Here's a discussion http://www.darkcosmos.dk/~tamarad/paper ... igBang.pdf

By the way, I assume that those points of light on Enceladus must be noise in the picture -- unless cities have been built there and no one is telling us

--------------------------------------------------
Edited to add yes must have forgotten ctrl-c
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetshine

[geckzilla]

Did you link to the wrong document? That one is all about The Big Bang [dramatic chord]
Gasp, that is off topic.

By the way, I managed to fix the picture in my head. I guess I was too sleepy for a third dimensional axis earlier.

[neufer]

That first photo of Enceladus is great. I am trying to picture in my mind how the light could possibly be bouncing from Saturn but can't seem to figure it out. I must have some basic piece of the puzzle wrong but I don't know which.

The relative brightness of the dark to the sunlit side of any moon
is independent of the distance to the sun (or of the moon's albedo).

Relative Planetshine ONLY depends upon the solid angular size of planet
as seen by the moon (and upon the planet's albedo).

Considering that Enceladus orbits only about 4 Saturn radii away
Enceladian Saturnshine will be about 100 times greater than Lunar earthshine
in relationship to the sunlit side of the respective moons.

[neufer]

By the way, I assume that those points of light on Enceladus must be noise in the picture -
- unless cities have been built there and no one is telling us

There is an extensive Mexican restaurant chain on Enceladus:

[bystander]

There is an extensive Mexican restaurant chain on Enceladus:

Just Mexican food? There are some opportunities here for some enterprising entrepreneurs.

[geckzilla]

Enceladus does make me think of the Spanish word for salads.

[neufer]

There is an extensive Mexican restaurant chain on Enceladus:

Just Mexican food?

<<Enchiladas originated in Mexico. Anthropological evidence suggests that the indigenous people living in the lake region of the Valley of Mexico traditionally ate corn tortillas folded or rolled around small fish. Writing at the time of the Spanish conquistadors, Bernal Díaz del Castillo documented a feast enjoyed by Europeans hosted by Hernán Cortés in Coyoacán, which included foods served in corn tortillas. Enchilada is the past participle of Spanish enchilar, "to add chile pepper to.">>

There are some opportunities here for some enterprising entrepreneurs.

• “ "Ladies and gentlemen," he said,
  "The Universe as we know it has now been in existence for over one hundred and seventy thousand million billion years and will be ending in a little over half an hour. So, welcome one and all to Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe!" ”

<<Milliways, also known as The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, can only be visited practically by time travel, as it exists at the end of time and matter. Marvin the Paranoid Android is one character who manages to reach Milliways without the use of time travel, merely by being very patient. One of the restaurant's major attractions is that diners can watch the entire universe end around them as they eat. The terminal moment is followed by dessert. Reservations are easily obtained, since they can be booked once the patron returns to his or her original time after their meal, and the restaurant's bill can be paid by depositing a penny in any bank account of the present time: by the end of the universe, Compound interest will be enough to pay the extremely high bill. Near-instant transportation to the restaurant can be achieved in certain rarefied circumstances, such as being next to an exploding hyperspatial field generator on the planet where Milliways will eventually be built several billion years after the explosion occurs. Among the items on the menu are various cuts of meat from the very obliging Ameglian Major Cow and the slightly less obliging vegetables in a green salad.>>

[Orca]

Enceladus does make me think of the Spanish word for salads.

When I played World of Warcraft, my warrior's name was Enceladus. Sadly my WoW-playing friends aren't interested in astronomy; they just looked at me rather strangely when I explained the reference.

[geckzilla]

If you switched a few of the letters around you could have been Enclaedius. Now that's a proper, nonsensical fantasy name and has no references at all.

...I admit that my brain used to misread Enceladus as Enclaedius. Probably a year later I finally heard someone say the word in a video and realized that I not only had several letters mixed up but had added the i. I'm so used to reading over typographical errors that sometimes it messes up my perception of unfamiliar words when I first encounter them.

[neufer]

[geckzilla]

Bravo, Cassini. Those are wonderful shots.

Watch, in a couple of days the APOD editors will have found a version turned into a red-blue glasses stereogram instead of just a crossed-eyes one.