Electric Saturn

[Mr_Majestic]

Well, this is interesting...

The Cassini plasma spectrometer instrument (CAPS) aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft was turned off between Friday, June 1 and Saturday, June 2, when a circuit breaker tripped off after the instrument experienced some unexpected voltage shifts.

Engineers are currently investigating this issue, which they believe is due to short circuits in the instrument. In June 2011, the instrument was turned off because of similar problems, but was switched on again in March 2012 once investigators determined that tin plating on electronic components had grown "whiskers" large enough to contact another conducting surface and carry electrical current, resulting in a voltage shift. At that time, it was believed that these "whiskers" were not capable of carrying sufficient current to cause any damage, and the voltage shifts didn't have any effect on normal spacecraft operations because the power subsystem is designed to operate in the presence of such shifts.

The cause is still under investigation, but engineers will be looking into this issue over the next few months.

Is it just me or is the source of the problem painfully obvious? As in being in orbit around a gaseous body in a electrically charged system?

[Sparky]

They try to design, knowing the electrical environment that the craft will be in, so this seems to be a design mistake. Not as bad as when metric system was used by one team and Imperial by another..

[hyrumpoint0]

I found this unprocessed image photo of the surface of Saturn, on the JPL website. I tried finding the processed image but could not find it. Does anyone know what those large ring wavefronts are and what caused them?

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/i ... 076165.jpg

They look like splashes on liquid from asteroid impacts, but it seems unlikely considering how huge they are.

[viscount aero]

wow; that is on Saturn?

[Sparky]

Is there a way to contact jpl and ask about that image, which I have safely in a folder..

Here is another:

[nick c]

My first impression is an "image artifact." Can we rule that out?

[hyrumpoint0]

They're like no image artifact I've seen. I emailed a friend of mine who works for Adobe for their image processing department, but have heard no reply yet.
It would be very interesting to hear about any explanation. Unfortunately, I have no good explanation. There are several pictures like these on the JPL website.

Could it be something coming up from further down in the atmosphere?

[GaryN]

I suspect this is what the raw data from their instruments looks like all the time. The post processing is what makes most of what we see on the 'Net make some kind of sense to our eyes, and minds.

[MosaicDave]

These aren't normal optical images of "waves", or equivalent to a normal 2D photo like most people are accustomed to looking at. To me, they look just the way a hologram looks, when you view it in daylight (I mean an old-fashioned hologram meant to be reconstructed with a laser; not the "white light" holograms like they print on credit cards.) Same kind of interference zones, etc. I tried to find a good example on the web to link to here, but haven't seen anything decent as yet.

My guess is that this is raw data out of some phased array or synthetic aperture radar type of rig, needing to be heavily processed to be reconstructed into a form that would make sense as a visual image.

[MosaicDave]

By the way, here's an example of the basic pattern I'm referring to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holograms#Point_sources

Though this is just a mathematically generated prototype; a real hologram is something like a superposition of millions of these...

[Sparky]

My guess is that this is raw data out of some phased array or synthetic aperture radar type of rig, needing to be heavily processed to be reconstructed into a form that would make sense as a visual image.

What "good" data is processed out? How reliable is the finished product?

[hyrumpoint0]

I found a Q&A section on the JPL website: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/FAQRawImages/#q7
They say that some donut-shaped defects in the raw images are dust on the lens, but there is not that much dust as to explain these images. They would also not explain the multiple ripples.

Each image gives a description of what filters were used. Both the following images used the same filters. The first one is a normal image of Saturn
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/r ... eID=270391
and the second is one of the concentric circle ones.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/r ... eID=270843

Since they both use the same filters and the same wide angle camera, it is safe to conclude that they are both optical images and not some unprocessed radar/x-ray image.

[promethean]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-367

This press release manages to blame temperature variations on energetic electrons...
I can't help but think of electricity. Am I missing something ?

[nick c]

This press release manages to blame temperature variations on energetic electrons...
I can't help but think of electricity. Am I missing something ?

It is just a matter of nomenclature. What is electricity if not moving electrons? They prefer to use a term like "energetic electrons" instead of electricity. Mainstream is reluctant to use the "e" word.
It is somewhat of euphemism as the "e" word can cause heart palpitations, fainting, or indigestion in mainstream astronomers.

[StevenJay]

It is somewhat of euphemism as the "e" word can cause heart palpitations, fainting, or indigestion in mainstream astronomers.

Yep, much the same as when they view most of the data they get back from their very expensive toys any more; toys that were designed to find parts to their imagined puzzle. But instead, they keep finding parts that fit a completely different puzzle. A veritable head-scratching, heart-palpitating, gastro-intestinal melodrama, indeed. "We need a bigger hammer. . . and more funding. . . and more Malox!!"