Another Cassini flyby of Titan
We await the data! Yesterday Cassini did its 118th flyby of Titan, getting close enough for two of its instruments to directly measure the planet’s upper atmosphere.
More here.
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We await the data! Yesterday Cassini did its 118th flyby of Titan, getting close enough for two of its instruments to directly measure the planet’s upper atmosphere.
More here.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
So we lost Pluto but gained Titan in the planet count? Whose behind this, the textbook publishers?
Good catch, Wodun.
The definition of a planet will be determined by the way people use the words. To me, and to almost every planetary scientist I’ve ever interviewed, moons like Titan are planets, big, active, and complex. So, when I discuss them, I use that word, because the word “moon” only refers to the object’s location. It does not describe it very well otherwise.
Fair enough, I am still upset Pluto isn’t considered a planet.
Call me a retro-grouch if you will, but I am teaching my son that there are Nine Planets and that Pluto is not only a planet but has always been one.
He is already trying to correct his Kindergarten teachers when they talk about 8 planets…. LOL
We all watched the reports of the New Horizons mission with interest since in our house it was the last planet to be visited by a spaceprobe.
History in the making :-)
Steve & Wodun:
Call me a retro-grouch as well. (I only play a rocket-scientist on the Internet.)
I totally trend toward your camp on all this– “Planets” orbit the Sun, “Moons” orbit Planets. (And Pluto was the last Planet to be visited by a space probe.) It might not be as precise & exact as it could be, and/but, as Mr. Z notes the words do get defined by the way in which they are used, but I think the planetary scientists do themselves a disservice in the eyes of the general-public when they change things drastically.
Tangentially– What are the “official” name(s) of our Sun and our Moon?
One correction, Steve. Pluto is not the last planet to be visited by a space probe. There will be many more, in the future, hopefully when you son is still alive. Not only do we have exoplanets, but the Kuiper Belt has planets in it as large as Pluto.
Thanks for the correction Bob, I should have said the last planet of the original nine that I was taught, and I do tell him often that we have just begun to see whats out there. I hope he will remain interested enough as he grows up to follow a career somewhere in the sciences and/or exploration.
I would much rather keep Pluto as a full-member of the “Planets of the Sol System” and then add more as necessary instead of demoting it to dwarf status. I get very irritated with the newer school books that speak of eight planets only and have no mention whatsoever of any other bodies dwarf or otherwise….. as though Pluto never even existed!
Wayne: I was always under the impression that our sun was “Sol” as in the above “Sol System” and that the moon was called “Luna”. I rely on the very smart people here to let me know if that’s correct.