Cassini's closest encounter

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:10:45 GMT

The whole concept of tasting the Enceladus interior and from such a close distance is almost the equal of the Phoenix Mars lander. Perhaps one day they will put a satellite into orbit to do some real sampling of the geysers. There could be microbes spewing forth which would require far more intricate ways of analysis.

Cassini's closest encounter

JZ, Skokie, IL — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:13:40 GMT

On October 14th there will be a flyby in the skies of planet Earth that will rock the world!! It's time to get excited. Please see:
http://10-14-08.blogspot.com/

Cassini's closest encounter

ray smith, shippensburg PA — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:23:51 GMT

I have used an older image of Enceladus for one of my systems' desktop for a couple of years now, every time I boot it up (daily), I get to ponder at it in detail while the system comes around....and everyday I think, wow, there must be tons of shrimp there!!! This new image provides a slightly different angle of the same moon, and you know, looking at it from this new angle, I got to say, wow, there must be tons of shrimp there!! This moon deserves the next generation of AI Planetary explorer robot...We should of had one on our moon already BUT this moon SHOULD get AT LEAST one rover...AND SOON, I BET ASTRONAUTS WOULD JUST LOVE A SEAFOOD DINER AFTER THEY CLEAR THE ASTEROID BELT!!....even if we don't find life there, I am sure we have just found potable water...if anyone wants to prove me wrong, then lets just go there and find out!!...nice report Alan, If you get a chance to ask one of the researchers another question, ask them if they could venture a guess as to how much (%) of saturns rings are made up of ice from this moon, and, in fact, what probability is it that some of the ice particles from the geysers may have made the journey inwards to rain down upon our little oasis, namely terra firma?

Cassini's closest encounter

Eric, Salinas, CA — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:11:37 GMT

Cassini has done a bang up job exploring Saturn and it's moons. So exciting to be alive to witness such great space exploration.

Cassini's closest encounter

Dr. Bob Solomon — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:24:35 GMT

Once gain, we may be one living cell or its remains from ending the earth-centered fantasies that allow know-nothing politicians to reduce funding for science, respect for its methodologies, and freedom for American education. Except in cinema, dinosaurs and humans did not walk the earth together nor was life only here.

Cassini's closest encounter

M from PA — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:48:35 GMT

Alan,
With this great report as well as several others in the recient past, HOW can our political leaders NOT support NASA, the Hubble Telescope and so many other scientific projects? The information gained from these projects FAR out weigh the costs associated with them! (1) financial bail out = ?? science
Thanks!

Cassini's closest encounter

Eric, Show Low AZ — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:43:11 GMT

JZ from Skokie: Wow. You scare me. This is a blog about hard science: facinating discoveries and advances being made even as I type. You're speaking of aliens visiting to raise us to the fifth dimension? Is Marylin McCoo with you? She may set you straight. Enough of you.
Alan: As always, excellent work here. Every day I enjoy reading about the positive work that researchers are doing fo further our knowledge of the universe in which we live and how that knowledge advances our everyday lives. Keep it up!
Dr. Solomon: I understand your passion. I don't see science as divisive and feel perhaps a softer "I see your position, but that turns out not to be the case" type approach would bring more cooperation and funding from those of a currently contrary view.
NASA: As paltry as this is, rock on!!! Excellent work benifitting us all. While we know that organic material doesn't neccessarily correlate with actual "life", just discovering the potentiality is amazing. Keep it up!

Cassini's closest encounter

Marian Ware, Graham, TX — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:50:35 GMT

I would love to get some of that under a microscope. Wouldn't it be a kick to bring a sample back for study. By the way, thanks for the blog. I'm a micro educated person trying to get my head around the macro. This helps.

Cassini's closest encounter

don johnson, birmingham alabama — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:33:24 GMT

If life is ever discovered in the solar system, it probably originated here on earth and was transported there on one one of our spacecraft. There is no justification of sending a satellite to the study of geysers erupting from the surface of Enceladus, an ice satellite whose surface is covered in ice with a temperature that is several hundered degrees below zero and that is absolutely inhospitable to human life - or any other of Saturn's moons.Cassini and this entire mission have cost hundereds of millions of dollars, money that could have been better spent trying to solve some of the immediate problems we are experiencing on the Earth.i.e.- Global Warming, Hunger, Alternative Energy Sources, Cure for AIDS/Diabetes/Cancer, Disaster Relief, the current ongoing greatest Mass Extinction of life that has ever occurred on the Earth, the Poisoning of our Oceans, the Destruction of the Protective Ozone Layer Above the Earth, the impending collapse of our fisheries due to over fishing, the burning and clearing of our carbon recycling and oxygen producing rain forests. We need to take care of our business here on Earth, instead of squandering precious money building toys for little boys to play about the solar system with. What good is the knowledge obtained if in the near future our civilization collapses as a result of failure to address the myriad of problems that now directly affecting us and that threaten our existence. In reality Man is a cancer on this planet, infesting every inhabitable niche available. We need to stop destroying our world. We have an obligation to preserve what is left of the dignity of life on this planet. Who cares if microbes exist on other worlds. There is clearly no truly intelligent life in our solar system other than us. We are trapped in this sector of space and the life cycle and reign of the human species will probably end long before anyone from this planet ever arrives on worlds outside our Solar system, worlds that are trillions of miles away. We do have the technology and probably never will have in the short remaining span of human existence to reach other worlds and even if we do, all of us here today will be long dead.We owe it to our children to preserve what is left of our world for them and the other surviving creatures that call the earth home.

Cassini's closest encounter

C Eldridge — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:35:49 GMT

I waited for this mission for about seven years on it's journey and wow... Glad to hear it's still going so strong! Back then there was a serious spat of rocket failures during lift off but as fate would have it the Cassini launch was fine! I look around at the delema our economy and world is in and as I looked at a pictureesque photo of Mt Rushmore, I realized that society is no longer creating magnificent things for the glory of man itself or the science that it really takes to learn new things like Cassini... The author of the video series civilization spoke of the greatness of societies like Rome and how once they lost their confidence and stopped creating art they lost their will and eventually vansished. Will we be the same? What is missing is scientific and triumphs that inspire us to dream even bigger. Just hope I get to live to see some of them :) Always would hope to be a small part of them too :) ... it's who we are... dreamers... Life on Encelidus probably is there given the nature of Transpermia and the ease in which life can propogate from planet to planet after asteroid impacts. Let's hope right????? Chris

Cassini's closest encounter

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:56:34 GMT

The official explanation of these jets emanating from Cassini generally don't pass the smell test. What space scientists are failing to realize is that the jets are in fact the result of electrical machining from cathode jets. The wandering "ice geysers" wander along the tiger stripes for the simple reason that the plasma filament will tend to connect to the tallest structure -- which in this case ends up being the tiger stripe trench walls. The same process that is machining Cassini is also responsible for the illumination of comets. Data from those two different types of encounters should appear similar to conventional scientists in ways that will almost surely confuse them. They should also expect to see "turbulent" magnetic fields and particle energies exceeding expectations during the flyby. They may even see unexpected negative ions like those found near active comet nuclei.

They won't understand any of this, however, so long as they continue to ignore the work of the Electric Universe group (http://www.thunderbolts.info). The astrophysicists are taking the unbelievably long and painful route to an admission that their magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models are improperly modeling astrophysical plasmas. The conventional theories propose that plasmas can be modeled as superconducting fluids with frozen-in-place magnetic fields, and that plasmas can be mathematically modeled to instantaneously charge-neutralize. Real plasmas are in fact far more complex than this, and they are fundamentally electromagnetic phenomenon that ignore gravity. The space scientists fail to acknowledge that the man who was awarded the Nobel Physics Prize for the creation of MHD -- Hannes Alfven -- warned in very clear language in his acceptance speech for the Nobel that these assumptions are in fact dangerously wrong. In his own words ...

"I thought that the frozen-in concept was very good from a pedagogical point of view, and indeed it became very popular. In reality, however, it was not a good pedadogical concept but a dangerous 'pseudo-pedadogical concept.' By 'pseudo-pedadogical' I mean a concept which makes you believe that you understand a phenomenon whereas in reality you have drastically misunderstood it."

The wise and critically important words of MHD's pioneer were ignored, and the result is that the behavior we see of plasma within the laboratory is not always taken into full consideration when the mathematicians model plasmas they see through their telescopes. The fact of the matter is that space plasmas can become highly electrical, just like they do within the laboratory. If space scientists want to truly understand space plasmas, then they should abandon their mathematical models and spend more time inside of the laboratory. They might start by reviewing the works of people like Kristian Birkeland, Hannes Alfven, Ralph Juergens, Wallace Thornhill, Donald Scott and Anthony Perratt with an open mind to alternative paradigms. The electric paradigm has proven itself to be far more useful in describing our observations of space. Were more people actually paying attention and were more space reporters willing to learn what the theory says before accepting criticism of it, there would be far more awareness of this fact.

The gravity-centric paradigm that has come to dominate the space sciences today are a refusal to admit these fundamental errors. When you consider that 99.999% of all visible matter in the universe exists within the plasma state, the enormity of the misunderstanding can affect all of our interpretations of space imagery and data.

So long as astrophysicists continue to ignore Alfven's warning and continue to ignore the Electric Universe theorists and plasma-based cosmologies, our space scientists will continue to feign surprise when it comes to observations of Enceladus' unusually energetic jets, its enigmatic tiger stripes, the hot point sources that their cameras have difficulty imaging and the dust's surprisingly similar composition to the material emanating from comets. Scientists attempting to justify the source of this moon's apparent energy will fail to do so, so long as they continue to ignore the fact that the energy is originating from elsewhere. Astrophysicists already know that currents (Birkeland Currents) can and do connect the Earth and Sun because they've directly witnessed them. They already know that space is filled with filaments because they appear nearly everywhere we look. The problem has been their reluctance to admit that these electric currents and plasma filaments actually do things of importance. We as humans collectively pay a very large price for this failure.

Rather than recognizing that the enigma of Enceladus is really a problem for the gravity-centric paradigm, scientists will surely continue to fail to re-evaluate the Standard Model in accordance with the relative success of the alternative electrical paradigm. That's because there is a tendency within the space sciences at the moment to ignore competitors to the Standard Model as "fringe" theories, not worthy of even understanding, even as the Standard Model exhibits a truly dismal predictive success rate on a daily basis. This culture of complacency with the Standard Model by space scientists (and even reporters) acts in fact as a drag to our global economy and impedes a greater understanding of very serious issues like global warming. Great advances are being made particularly in the discipline of comparative mythology that demand our attention. The astrophysicists refuse to acknowledge in particular the fact that we can now use laboratory plasma physics to understand ancient writings and stories (read "God Star" by Dwardu Cardona). Instead, they just ignore the entire discipline's findings and ridicule the very attempt to better understand ancient writings and stories as patently ludicrous. Their collective judgment of comparative mythology is based upon a complete lack of information with regards to that discipline.

I've written on this blog on numerous occasions about these problems. This problem is very, very real and it will continue to persist possibly for our entire lifetimes if people don't start reading what the astrophysical critics are saying. My sincere hope is that Alan Boyle and other space reporters will start to dig into the issues a little bit deeper. Don't accept everything you are being told at face value, regardless of somebody's credentials. Don't blind yourself to legitimate arguments because of some fear of alienating your official astrophysical contacts. Don't assume that the alternative theories are difficult to understand, or based upon esoteric science. They are neither.

Ideally, as a reporter, you should be reading the critics' materials, checking their claims, asking them questions and trying to get to the truth of the matter as an investigator would. What we get instead, more often than not, is the regurgitation of NASA press releases in accordance with nothing but the conventional views. The Electric Universe Theorists are very willing to talk and answer any technical question you have for them. They can and do completely defend their theories. And those theories -- which currently remain less detailed than conventional theories -- are without a doubt performing better than the Standard Model. You'll have to do some reading to see it though.

Cassini's closest encounter

Carston Grasvik, Crofton, MD — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:39:24 GMT

I'm wondering if I saw a stellar event this morning (5:23am ET). I'm in Crofton MD. I was looking up at Orion and just to the right I saw what looked like a star increase in magnitude to the brightness of Venus and slowly dim until I couldn't see it anymore. I don't believe it to be an aircraft or sattelite. Any ideas?

Cassini's closest encounter

Fisher — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:45:59 GMT

It's time for humanity to be striving to inhabit space on a large scale. This rock is taking itself far too seriously and the population here is far too large.

Cassini's closest encounter

Rob — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:35:08 GMT

I'm with Fisher, get me of this rock!

Cassini's closest encounter

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:57:25 GMT

In the midst of so much I disagree with, Thomas again posts what can only be described as wisdom. Consider also the later article "Life on Earth's Final Frontier" about bacterial life that uses decaying radioactive material as it's ultimate and only energy source (as opposed to the sun). If we're really serious about searching for extraterrestrial life we should make more staunch efforts in the likely places we can actually reach.

Cassini's closest encounter

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:09:31 GMT

Chris Reeve continues to spout off about the Electric Universe while continuing to ignore some very basic observable facts. He aludes to the tiger striping on enceladus being caused by EDM. However, EDM would produce verticle faces with sharp edges only. The tiger stripes show a great deal of rounded edges and probably tapered sides, another thing EDM doesn't do. He has, in the past, supported the geysers as visibly travelling across the moon's surface, which you would expect if it were electrical, but that motion was the geyser staying in one spot on a rotating moon. We'd have to say that the craters move across it's surface as well. Not to mention the most obvious, current density. You can move a lot of current through a 10 acre cross section and not get enough current to produce EDM. Focus that same amount of current through a square centimeter and whatever is in that square centimeter will be vaporized, EDM. If the geysers were caused by the amount of current that would be necessary to produce them that current would be obvious when we observe the geysers.
Bullets make holes. If I ran around saying that every hole was evidence that a bullet was shot there the vast majority of you would acknowledge that I was an idiot. That's because you know about drills. And nails. And staples. And so on. The fact that there are drills and nails and staples and so on making holes doesn't mean that bullets don't. It just means that the guy running around saying every hole that exists proves that bullets made that hole is an idiot. There are many examples that we can see that are very possibly electrical in nature. The claim that such a lot of what we see is caused by electrical discharge when it obviously isn't is motivated by a lack of legitimate evidence to support their claims. It is unfortunate that they would reduce themselves to such foolery because now they are completely ignored as charlatans when they quite possibly have a peice of knowledge that would benefit the space sciences. Although that peice is far smaller than they would have you believe.
The Birkeland Currents (broad defenition) referred to are out of a star only and not closed loop. They definitely have an effect on planets, like wind has an effect on a sail boat, but are not some sort of connection.
It's a bunch of empty claims that are never supported because there is no support.