Followed By a Moon Shadow
Posted at 5:20 AM on April 27, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(29 Comments)
Welcome to Monday!
We so often feel besieged by disappointment and calamity - war, financial collapse, possible swine flu pandemics, tragedy, etc., etc., etc.
But the universe is big and our problems quite small by comparison, so when things appear bleak, why not step back and take the long view?
How long? How about 700 million miles?
No matter how miserable things become in the next few months, (and misery is not guaranteed or required - feel free to have a great summer), by August we will feel some justified amazement from otherworldly images from space. The Cassini spacecraft is still out there, orbiting Saturn, taking pictures.
Lauded in yesterday's NY Times, the Cassini has a busy few months ahead of it, as NASA scientists explain:
One of the happy results of Saturn's 29-year revolution around the sun is the changing elevation of the sun seen from the planet, and the changing elevation of the shadows of the rings and moons that the sun's apparent motion brings.
Between now and equinox in August, the shadows cast by the moons on the rings will grow longer with time.
The statement goes on to discuss "vertical displacement" of the ringplane and the ramifications of changing orbital inclinations with regard to the position of the sun, but in layman's terms the result is this:
Wicked cool photos of moon shadows across the rings of Saturn are on the way!
We should be seeing them all summer!
Here are some recent shots. You can click on any image to see a larger version. The photo to the left shows a tiny white dot, Saturn's moon Pan, comfortably nestled between the rings. The very small stripe above the dot is Pan's shadow.
To the right is a shadow cast by another one of Saturn's moons -
Epimetheus. Often we see the shadow but not the moon itself. Not to worry - NASA has photos of those too.
Here's one. Janus is a misshapen lump, like a chunk of blueberry muffin that fell in the sink one day when I was snacking on the sly. Janus is getting bright light from the Sun on one side, and light reflected off Saturn on the other.
On the right we have Dione, looking like a backdrop painting for a high school production of South Pacific, ready for some nurse and a French guy to come along and sing a love song in front of it.
All this goes spinning through space, oblivious to our troubles. Thanks to NASA and JPL and Cassini, we can watch in amazement, and when we have too many burdens, we can send a few of them them off to cast shadows across the rings of Saturn.
Comments (29)
Good cloudy shadowless Monday Morning from Mahtowa!
Dale...does this mean we will hear Cat Stevens' Moon Shadow this morning???? I hope, I hope.
Hi Cynthia,
I wish! I just looked in the library and our Cat Stevens disc is missing. Now that I think about it, it may have been Jim Ed's personal copy, now gone into retirement along with him. I'll have to work on getting a new copy, so we can look forward to "Moonshadow" later this week.
Beautiful, yet again, Dale - thanks for the words and pictures to bring things back in perspective. i will steal from one of your phrases and add it to the end of the following message i prepared for the RH community:
Thanks to everyone for the good wishes and positive energies sent for Alba’s kids, especially the Little. He died just after noon on Friday - we could see it coming because he took less and less of Alba’s milk that we bottle fed to him frequently. We did our best but he just wasn’t strong enough to live. His bigger brother is doing quite well; Alba bonded with him right away. We think that she knew, way before we did, that the Little would be a lost cause - so she spent her energy on the one that would live. We are naming Alba’s surviving kid “Heldig” (hell-dee) which means “Lucky,” and he really is (thanks to Cynthia for help with correct Norwegian). I would like to think that the Little is up there with Saturn’s moon Pan – as Dale says, “comfortably nestled between the rings” and feeling secure and warm.
Good morning Dale....I was just reading my online newsletter from Peter Mulvey and was reminded that I was remiss in getting my tickets to the show with Colin Hay coming up at the Cedar...which is now sold out...which is sponsored by Radio Heartland...which is this show....are you going to be giving away any tickets this week?
Signed, Polly Procrastinator
Anyone having difficulties listening on their HD radio this morning? All 3 of our HD radios can't pick up RH. I am hauling my laptop around the house! Any ideas?
I just went in - turned on the radio in the bedroom (I usually spend 1st half hour listening on the pc) and my radio is also not picking up RH -- will only search out the Morning Edition on KNOW.
Barb - so, so very sorry to hear the sad news about the little one. I'm glad that Heldig is doing well (picture??). Of course, he's not lucky -- the kind of love and effort that you put into your goats makes luck just extra. Hang in there.
Cyncia -- how was your weekend? Any new good Norwegian words we just have to know?
Good Morning RH,
I don't remember hearing Indigo Girls before on the program. I love them so much!
Great space pictures. What's the difference between orbit and revolution?
Barb - thank you for your eloquent words.
Sherrilee, the weekend was, as usual, fun and interesting and challenging (they included folk dancing this year...I marveled at the group Saturday night as we with our various dancing/memory abilities laughed our way through several dances.)
I'll have to think about new words...there were so many. I'll share as I remember...
HD is back in Marine! Don't know what the problem was, but at least the HD radios are now getting RH.
Thought I'd clarify the name...I just have really cute cats, no goats.
Good morning Heartlanders,
The loss of the Little reminds me of how inefficient Mother Nature is even in the Spring with so much rich life being born, hatched, and blossomed. While the oak tree probably doesn't notice how many of her acorns become tall trees, those of us who have only 1 or 2 little ones at a time feel the loss of a newborn or child very acutely.
Dale, in honor of Barb's loss and the loss faced by too many parents, foster parents, and adoptive parents every day could you play something like "Baby of Mine" from Dumbo?
Thanks
Good morning everyone! This is completely off the subject, but I'm hoping someone can help me figure out why my HD radio will only pick up 91.1-1 and 91.1-3 and won't get Radio Heartland! I'm hoping to get it working in time for Prairie Sun!
no HD this am, bummer, no Prairie Sun!
i think i have the Cat Stevens on vinyl if you want it
Good morning, all. I'm afraid it's one of those Monday mornings. Hope to get back to read the comments later. Hope I'll even get to hear that show!
No HD in Chaska. Makes me sad!
Greetings Heartlanders! Barb, sorry to hear of your loss of the Little Goatling. Enjoy Heldig, and I hope you're enjoying more sleep now.
Dale, I really enjoyed your perspective this morning ... and great pictures. It's easy to strut and fret about our time on this earth, but from a cosmological perspective, we're just a flicker of a speck wafting through space.
Barb - I'm sorry to hear about Little. We have a book we got for our daughter when one of her grandmothers died that talks about Grandma going to live in the stars (the art is great) - so I think Little probably is nestled up there with the moons of Saturn. It's comforting to think of all those glittering stars and such as souls that have passed.
Dale - any chance you could squeeze in "Vincent" (and all its starry starry night references) for Alba, Heldig, Barb and Little?...no moon shadows in the song, but it is a celestial tune, so it still sorta fits, too, with the Saturn topic.
thanks everyone for your good thoughts for Alba, the Little and Heldig - even song requests for us - this is a great community. if you want pictures, follow the link below to Steve's blog about our farm and the critters.
many good thoughts for Karen today; hope everything goes perfectly.
Good Morning!
Moving at a slow pace even for a Monday but wanted to pass along kudos to Barb for giving Little a chance. Nature is sometimes as cruel as it is beautiful and we can't often change it's choice but not for a lack of trying. All we can do, like Storyhill's song, is keep "Steady On".
Oh, I shed a couple of tears for the baby goat who didn't make it. Bless it's little soul and bless the people who tried so hard to keep it alive and it's Mama and brother who are Lucky and loved. Having put to sleep several beloved dogs and one cat and lost 5 sweet little guinea pigs (1 lived to be 7!) I know that the surviving animals feel grief. I love the image of the Little's soul nestled with Saturn's little moon.
Loved the picttures! I wasn't sure what I was seeing at first. It looked like telephone lines or something. But Dales eloquent descriptions were a great way to bring it into focus.
Have a great day everyone. Looks like we have a little break from the much needed rain.
Off for my walk with my pooches!
Barb -- lovely photos. I especially love the "in the air". Thanks for sharing a bit of your Eden. I'm also glad to hear that Artie and Tammy will stay together as family pets.
Mark - your words are lovely. Did you get any riding in this weekend in the rain?
Fascinating stuff. My wife told me about these pics but I hadn't seen them yet. Given sufficient time I'm sure most of us could come up with something poetic about 'life's troubles being shadows of the moons in our minds' or something like that.
What strikes me as being most interesting is the blueberry muffin similarity to Janus. This opens up an entire field of food related space exploration that (I believe) has gone officially unnoticed by NASA, JPL, and The Food Network. Oh sure, we've all heard the 'moon is made of green cheese' axiom but it doesn't ~really~ look like green cheese. More like a swiss or maybe a pesto marbled white cheddar. Of course, it'd be easy simply to throw all the planets, planetoids, or planettes (is that what they're calling Pluto now?) into the gobstopper category. But I think that's just too much of an oversimplification to correlate heavenly bodies with pristine or partially dissolved candy spheriods. I think it's worth granting a few billion to look into this neglected field. After all, if you can get kids to eat their bread crusts because they look like the surface of Mercury, isn't it worth it?
Good morning, Heartlanders -
Barb, I'm so sorry to hear about the Little. I went to your website and loved all the pictures of Little, Lucky, Artie and Tammy Waynette, moms, grandmas, midwives, etc!! Those are some cute kids!
I've been under the weather, so have missed the last couple weeks of RH. Glad to be back in the herd. Also like the Saturn pictures. The picture of the moon Janus looks like one of those pollen grains that's been bothering me so much.
Great music this morning!
ooohhh... TGinTH... I see a whole new world opening up. The Brussell Sprout Marketing Board is probably already sensing that their day may have finally come!
Did I hear Jasper throw in a "Yeah!" after a song around 9:10 this morning?
Buenos dias! Thanks for opening the show for Jearlyn Steele and co. on Saturday night. It was exciting to see you and Jim Ed out and about.
I hope RH is going well for you and that you're happy these days.
Dale - Thanks for the Saturn info. As a kid I was sure I would be a rocket scientist and while that didn't pan out, I still retain fascination with celestial phenomenon.
Barb - Great pics! Nice to see the kids in their natural habitat.
Sherrilee - I'm glad you enjoyed the words! As for riding in the rain, having my days free allows me to get in plenty of riding without having to ride in the rain too often. I will be riding today even if the rain that just showed up continues since I haven't had a good workout ride for a few days.
Dale...when will (I won't even ask "if") will the Jearlyn show be broadcast?
Dale and Mike - thanks so much for playing both angel songs for us - was out milking Dodger this morning and missed them!
out to work on the "Gentlemens' Club" in order to get Niblet and Majority out of the girls' barn so they can't stinkify the milk - and make it taste "goaty"
the boys want want a searchlight and a big flag over their digs, but we're holding out on that.
Thanks for the "FUNKY" business this morning and now "Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky". It will be a while before Michael Doucet's song is out of my mind. Also, the rain gauge had 1/2 inch of rain in it here in Alexandria and things do look a lot greener today.
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