I’ve taken a very long hiatus from writing my blog, having been preoccupied at work and home with other concerns. But now that I’ve cleaned up the thousands of spammed posts that never got approved, deleted the fictitious rabble from the list of registered users on my site, and generally set about the task of thinking how I’d like to continue, I’ve decided to get back to it. One thing that happened over the intervening years is that I’ve come to appreciate my Catholic faith more deeply. I’m currently half-way through the Adult Faith Formation classes taught by the Kino Institute at the Diocesan Center in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and this more than anything has helped me to see the beauty of Catholic teaching amid a world in dire need of peace and people of good will. For this reason, I plan to add my personal thoughts on religion as a general…
Tag: science
Saturn’s Barbs More great science from Cassini
The Cassini robot, still in orbit around Saturn, continues to pick out very cool features of the ringed planet. Recently, it discovered perturbations of the F ring, caused by half-mile size chunks of ice; large enough to disturb the orbits of the tiny ice crystals that make up the ring. Some of these features are transitory, and some appear relatively permanent. At any rate, they’re quite beautiful. There’s a great article with videos on the Cassini homepage at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory web-site, and a composite of several images below. NASA/JPL