It’s awe-inspiring, in a way that begs belief. So far away that it’s pretty much incomprehensible by most people, a small machine is now sending us (wirelessly, something we all now can grasp) pictures of it’s travels. A moblog from space. I can almost imagine myself out there, bored out of my mind sitting in a tiny, cramped seat on that Pan Am shuttle-pod, mindlessly taking pictures with my mobile phone and MMSing them back to NASA.
The rings of Saturn are an incredible sight, defying expectations of what should be out there. It looks like a piece of art, with those incredibly thin swirls of pattern and wave surrounding it. Even the images that Cassini has sent back so far do nothing to spoil the illusion of grand, sweeping curves of some smooth substance. Despite the shattering of that illusion yet to come, I’m anxious to see pictures of the rings that show them close up, that show the particles that create such beauty.
