The Rings of Saturn

[Zephik]

I was reading up on planets and I eventually came across Saturn and its rings, which I then found out are made up almost entirely of ice. ...and last I checked ice is made out of water... so couldn't you use the rings of Saturn as a water source for long distance galactic travel? I wonder if its even usable? I mean sure its contaminated with dust and stuff, but surely you could just filter it out?

Thoughts?

[blueonblack]

Actually, ice is made of anything that's a solid. Methane can be frozen into ice. Even hydrogen will be ice at absolute zero. Not sure what they are made of but there may very well be something there that could be used.

[Zephik]

Hmm, well the article said they were made of "water ice". I assume that means water? or maybe not?

[blueonblack]

No, you're right, "water ice" sure sounds like water. Interesting. I'd be interested to know how much of it was there, I'll have to do some research, thanks for the info I had no idea. :)

[Eclecticos]

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/391/satrings.gif
Solar System Exploration: Saturn
Overview (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Saturn&Display=Overview)
Gallery (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Saturn&Display=Gallery)
Facts (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Saturn&Display=Facts)
Fun (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Saturn&Display=Kids)

[Oneslowz28]

True fact. The rings are edge on with the earth right now and you are not able to see them. This happens either every 20 years or 40. I forget which.

The rings are composed of several things: Water ice, Dust, micro asteroids. Water Ice is ice made of water as opposed to say, dry ice which is made of Co2, or any other liquid or gas that will freeze when cold enough. There is a long discussion on saturns ring composition over on cloudynights (http://cloudynights.com). Even some awesome close up high res photos from the cassani space craft.

[x88x]

Here's the article that Wikipedia references:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/is/2002/00000160/00000002/art06967
They'll charge you $55 if you want to actually read the thing, but the abstract on the linked page sums it up pretty well:



Several types of surface and composition are discussed. We demonstrate that both the strong reddening over the interval 0.3–0.7 mum and the water ice absorption features are well reproduced by an intimate (“salt-and-pepper”) mixture of four coarse particles of two different materials: 93% are grains (typical sizes of 10, 200, and 2000 mum) of water ice containing a few percent of refractory organic solid (tholin) impurities within their bulk, and 7% are coarse grains of a dark material (amorphous carbon).


Basically, yeah, they're pretty sure the rings are mostly water ice. The problem, I would think, is that the amount of water that could be gleaned from the rings might not be worth the effort of gathering/distilling it. Also, take into consideration that we don't know with 100% certainty what the actually are composed of (don't want them getting out there and finding out that the stuff they're supposed to be drinking for the next 20 years is methane or something) and that we don't really know what affect harvesting ice from Saturn's rings would have. Also, Saturn's not really very accessible for anything...and by the time we have manned missions going out that far I would guess that we will have refined re-circulation techniques to make the point about moot.

[Zephik]

That's true. By the time we are able to go out that far, we probably won't even need to worry about outside water sources. However... I have seen quite a few space horror movies! Something always goes wrong! So, in the chance that something does go wrong... say we have a giant colony out there that needs water...

This kind of sounds like an alright movie now that I think about it. lol

[Oneslowz28]

Our best bet for water to sustain a space colony would be from Juipters moon Europa. We know it had an abundance of water. In fact there is a space craft being built to travel to europa and do some test on it.

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/europa.htm

[Zephik]

I wonder if it will use nuclear propulsion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29

Project Orion could leave earth and reach Pluto AND return to earth within a year! Crazy! With current technology, wouldn't it take years just to get to Mars?

Side note: Wikipedia is like THE ULTIMATE time waster. I LOVE IT. lol

[Oneslowz28]

Cassini captured this image of something punching through saturns F ring more info is at this link. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/08/09/like-the-fist-of-an-angry-god/

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2009/08/cassini_fring_punch.jpg

[Kayin]

Got lost on Wikipedia looking that stuff up.

Look up the Dean drive. MAN that is some head-hurting stuff.

[Eclecticos]

You could try WikiSky.Org (http://www.wikisky.org/)
Some preddy cool stuff on there.

[billygoat333]

I love astronomy. seriously have contemplated changing my major. :P

[Oneslowz28]

I love astronomy. seriously have contemplated changing my major. :P

I sometimes wish I would have majored in astrophysics. On the other hand I know several astrophysicist and they all say that they rarely have time to get behind an eyepiece while on the job. Most spend their time in front of a white board or scanning thousands of data sets looking for a single digit anomaly.

I do enjoy a quiet night alone behind the ep of one of my scopes but have not had much time this year. I have a 12" Orion Dob. and a 16" Meade truss dob. I also have a nice refractors but it is being loaned to a friend right now.