Thursday, December 15, 2005
These two ice balls keep that F-ring in good shape out at Saturn. Prometheus is on the left and orbits outside the ring. Pandora is on the right, and if you look carefully, you can see a ripple on the inside of the ring (about a moon-width to the right). More information here from JPL.
Just for comparison, Prometheus is a bit longer than the state of Delaware, Pandora just a bit shorter. Either would be larger that Hawaii's Big Island.
I've been reading some great non-fiction lately. Astronaut Gene Cernan's Last Man On the Moon offers great insight into the astronaut life during the moon shot era. I was struck by the sacrifices astronauts were expected to make in their personal lives and that impact on wives and children. I have to ask myself: as much as I would love to explore space, would I be willing to set aside family with the understanding I could come back and resume a husband's and father's life in the future? Cernan's book paints the astronaut corps of the 60's and 70's as intelligent, go-getting, and supremely competent men. But he also reveals the chinks the the armor.
David Harland's outstanding book Exploring the Moon awakened geological schooling long dormant in my brain. It gives a minute by minute breakdown of explorers' time on the moon. This book is absorbing to a science geek like myself. I especially like the background on the discussions about landing areas. The two books together give an interesting perspective of the effort to train astronauts to be geologists (and vice versa).
