Glitch Discovered In Saturn’s Rings By Cassini Spacecraft Images
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft recently ended its 20-year mission to Saturn. It was the first spacecraft to ever orbit the massive gas giant to study the planet’s myriad features, such as its extensive system of rings. These seemingly perfect bands of ice and rock had been photographed before and were thought to be mostly understood by astronomers, until Cassini found a rare exception: A glitch on the outer edge of the planet’s A-ring.
Is Peggy Just a Moonlet?
Launched in 1997, the Cassini spacecraft has always been on a suicide mission, albeit one filled with scientific discovery. That mission lasted just under 20 years, and its final days resulted in some of the most exciting images of the second largest planet in our solar system. The spacecraft discovered two new moons, deployed a probe that landed on Titan, and slipped between two layers of rings in its orbit.
Over its 10-year orbital period, images from Cassini began to show something that has still gone unexplained, a glitch in one of the rings. This glitch was first discovered by a long-time member of the imaging team, Carl Murray, who named it after his mother-in-law, Peggy, whose birthday it was.
When first imaged in 2013, Peggy was about 1.5 miles wide, and imperfect compared to Saturn’s otherwise pristine circuits. Because of its tiny size, the Cassini spacecraft was unable to capture it in great detail or within close proximity, but it was enough to recognize its anomalous nature. Murray and his NASA colleagues said they believed Peggy to be either a moon in the making or a moonlet disintegrating, as she got smaller during future imaging.
nasa.gov
Saturn’s rings consist of countless particles of ice and rock that orbit within the Roche Limit, an area where the planet’s gravitational force becomes so strong it rips apart small celestial bodies, such as asteroids and meteors. Typically, these particles will coalesce to form moons, but Saturn’s pull prevents this, instead maintaining their orbit. These small lunar building blocks are sometimes referred to as moonlets.
At first, scientists believed Peggy might have been a full-fledged moon, disrupting the flow of Saturn’s orbiting moonlets, but this theory was discounted because they would have expected it to create more chaos.
According to NASA, it has been difficult to track Peggy, as she’s not always been where they expect her to be. And though scientists believe Peggy may have been a nascent moon at one point, she still remains within the not-fully-explained category of Saturn’s features.
Strange Features In Images From Cassini Spacecraft
The Cassini spacecraft gave us quite a bit of new information about Saturn’s many moons, including the fact that some of them could potentially support life. The Huygens probe, carried by the Cassini spacecraft, landed on Titan, a moon with a significant amount of surface water.
Another of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, is thought to contain vast oceans beneath a layer of ice on its surface. These discoveries have raised the question of whether there is a possibility of life on these moons, as well as some other interesting theories.
The most unusual moon in Saturn’s orbit is one known as Iapetus. This walnut-shaped satellite has some odd features which some believe are characteristic of an artificial satellite. One half of the moon is bright white, while the other side is dark black with almost no reflectivity. There is a ridge running along its equator that alternative theorists have likened to two independent half-shells welded together. Others have imagined it to possibly be a wall of sorts.
Some have pointed out that it’s odd shape resembles a dodecahedron, evidence of artificial construction compared to the more spherical shape of natural satellites. Further study of Iapetus’ lunar surface shows additional geometric features with lines just a little too straight to be the product of natural mechanisms.
David Icke has proposed the idea that Saturn’s rings are actually artificial, based largely on a book titled Ringmakers of Saturn. He says he believes that Saturn is a broadcasting system, amplifying a frequency that is directly tied to our perception of reality. He points to the similarity between the rings of Saturn and information encoded on a CD or DVD.
Icke says he believes this signal is malevolent and that it’s broadcasting a false reality. He says these satellites orbiting Saturn are electromagnetic vehicles creating the rings, and that one can see exhaust being emitted in the process. Icke says he believes Saturn used to be a star like the sun, but that it is now being used to resonate sound frequencies.
There are, in fact, strange radio signals being broadcast from Saturn which can be found on NASA’s website. Could these eerie tones, that sound like something straight out of a horror movie, actually have an effect on Earth and our consciousness?
Another bizarre discovery on Saturn that has puzzled scientists and alternative theorists alike, is the massive hexagonal storm on the planet’s north pole. This storm stretches over 20,000 miles wide and reaches down at least 60 miles into the planet’s atmosphere. Its distinctively straight sides show how the winds in this gaseous storm shift direction drastically, a phenomenon never observed before.
David Wilcock draws the connection between the storm’s shape and Hans Jenny’s discovery of colloidal suspension. Jenny showed the way that sound frequencies create geometric patterns in solutions where particles are suspended in water and gas.
Could there be a connection between Icke’s theory of Saturn as a frequency transmitter and this massive hexagonal storm on the its north pole?
About the Author
NASA Developing Robotic Bees to Collect Samples, Map Mars Surface
NASA’s Mars rovers have gathered a lot of exciting data and photographs, but they’re moving at a snail’s pace. So how will it expedite that process? Robotic bees.
The space agency is developing bee-sized robots to map the surface of Mars and collect samples from the planet’s atmosphere. Scientists hope these insectoids will be more mobile and agile than traditional rovers.
The program, called “Marsbees,” is contracting researchers from the U.S. and Japan to build prototypes of winged robots, capable of swarming the red planet and collecting data, before returning to a rover to recharge.
Image courtesy uah.edu
One of the biggest obstacles engineers face is designing a robot that can fly in Mars’ unique climate. The red planet’s atmosphere can be pretty hostile with dust storms, low thermal inertia, and periodic ice ages. These bees will inevitably face some extreme weather conditions.
But there is one factor that may make the mission easier – Mars’ gravitational pull is about a third of Earth’s, which could prove to be more conducive to flight.
NASA’s website envisions the robots as roughly the size of a bee, but with larger, cicada-sized wings. Researchers imagine the bees will be capable of working independently or in teams to collect samples.
The program funding the project is called the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program, or NIAC, which fosters science fiction concepts with the potential for realistic applications.
The aerial bots would primarily search for methane emissions from below the planet’s surface – an indication of subterranean Martian life. NASA’s Curiosity rover previously discovered low levels of the gas, encouraging scientists to explore further.
But the technology for this apian concept doesn’t have a lot of promising precedent. Several years ago, DARPA built a hummingbird-inspired drone, with a multi-million-dollar budget. Researchers engineered it to fly steadily, but the winged machine would likely struggle in the Martian environment.
Engineers working on the Marsbees prototype will test their robots in a vacuum chamber, with conditions to simulate the climate and air density on Mars. The group is receiving just $125,000 over the course of nine months to fund their prototype, before it will be tested for feasibility by NASA. If it passes preliminary tests, it will then be eligible for a second round of funding.
