posted November 04, 2002 01:10 AM              

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Saturn appears in the first color composite made of images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on its approach to the ringed planet on Oct. 21, 2002. The planet was 177 million miles (285 million kilometers) away from the spacecraft, nearly twice the distance between the sun and Earth when Cassini took images of it in various filters as an engineering test. It is summer in Saturn's southern hemisphere, with the sun casting a semi-circular shadow of the planet partially across the rings, lower left, leaving the outermost A ring in sunlight from an angle of 27 degrees below the equator. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, appears as a white dot at upper left. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL/Southwest Research Institute)

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posted November 04, 2002 11:56 AM              

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Thank you, Proxieme.

That's mind boggling, but fascinating and beautiful.

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posted November 04, 2002 12:56 PM              

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that planet always looks so smooth - the resolution is way better than the old voyager 2 shots though

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posted November 05, 2002 01:06 AM              

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I ve seen saturn thru a normal telescope. Its very beautiful . The rings of dust are quite clear too!!

Jupiter is even better. I could see the moons too.

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posted November 05, 2002 02:00 AM              

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I can't wait for the lander drop on Titan

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posted November 05, 2002 03:59 PM              

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Yep! I don't know that much re: the timeline, though - do you?

You know what I can't wait for, too? A lander on Mars that doesn't fall prey to gremlins.

Diverging, these pics are the ones that really get me:

...a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell 2218. This "hefty" cluster resides in the constellation Draco, some 2 billion light-years from Earth (Hubble Image)

The deep-field images of galaxy clusters take my breath away every time I see them.

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posted November 05, 2002 05:33 PM              

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my uni got time on hubble at one point (allegedly)

Next time there's a clear night I can pop up and use the osbservatory (one of my housemates is a fellow of the observatory so he can get in any time he wants!! )

anyone want me to look at anything in particular?

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posted November 19, 2002 02:28 PM              

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Pert dern cool:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2493331.stm
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=624&e=1&cid=624&u=/ap/20021119/ap_on_sc/black_hole_merger

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posted November 19, 2002 03:14 PM              

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http://www.science.box.sk - good site for keeping tabs on stuff

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posted November 19, 2002 03:17 PM              

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Thanks N_w

I've usu. just tripped across info while doing research for something else, so that'll be a big help.

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