Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
Moon shadow, moon shadow:
[Via Planetary Society Weblog]
Over the weekend, sharp-eyed Cassini-watchers on unmannedspaceflight.com noticed a series of way-cool photos on the mission’s raw images website. Here’s a full-frame view, captured some time on April 8.Click to enlarge >Shadows on Saturn’s ringsCredit: NASA / JPL / SSIWhy’s this image cool? We’re looking at the rings, and the long skinny finger coming in to the image from the bottom is clearly the shadow from one of the moons. But wait, this ….
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High resolution pictures can do more than provide colorful pictures to use as wallpaper. Being able to look at shadows on the rings surrounding a planet 1.3 billion kilometers away from us (I figured that out by checking out Solar System Live and using an AU of 149,600,000 kilometers) and still learn something about the world around us is really such a technical triumph.
Emily demonstrates again what a knowledge of math can do for gaining an understanding of the Universe.
I have always loved geometry and trigonometry. They provide a purity that is seldom seen when dealing with living organisms.
I can not remember when I have used tangent, sine or cosine in my biological research. How about you?
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