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REMARKABLE NEIGHBOR
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ed on a
Voyager 2
image as hav–
ing a wide but shallow crater
across much of one hemisphere.
The crater is about 250 miles
across, wide enough so that its
sister satellite, 240-mile diameter
Mimas, could be dropped into it,
much as an egg into a n egg
cup.
The strangest satell ite of aJI is
Hyper ion, an elongated eccentric
body 220 miles long by 130 miles
wide. lts battered, ir regular shape
was variously likened to a " ham–
burger patty," a " battered hockey
puck" and a "can of tuna fish."
Scientists speculated that Hyper–
ion may have been partially shat–
tered by a collision with another
celestial body.
Amazing Rings
As in the case of
Voyager 1,
it
was t he rings of Sat uro that
amazed and mystified the scien–
tists assigned to the project.
Saturn's ring plane system is
indeed fantastic in size and com–
plexity.
Tt
resembles a giant phon–
ograph record- a record extend–
ing more than 200,000 miles in
December 1981
diameter. Thi s is a distance
roughly 84 percent of the distance
between the earth and its moon.
Yet , curiously, the ring plane is
so thin it is estimated to be only
l 00 meters or so thick. The aver–
age size of ring particles varíes
from lO meters in t he ou te r
reaches of the r ings to two meters
in the inner.
Voyager 2
fine-tuned the imag–
ing of the rings, whose composi–
tion had al ready been greatly
expanded by
Voyager
l.
It
is now
known that each majar ring is
composed of smaller rings, further
subdivided into ringlets, then rin–
glettes, and further sti ll into wispy
microringlettes.
Theori es as to the whys and
wherefores of the ring structure,
advanced after examining
Voyager
1
data, were unsubstantiated by
Voyager 2.
So it's back to the theo–
retical drawing board. Said one
observer: " The rings represent an
awesomely complicated exercise in
gravity.
It
is difficult enough to fig–
ure out what three different chunks
are going to do in outer space, let
alone millions. Even with the power
. of today's computers, it is not pos–
sible to model such a complex situ–
ation."
Further Exploration in Question
Scientists are eager, of course, to
send additiona1 space probes in the
fut ure to Saturo , Jupiter and else–
where in our solar system to gather
more data.
But just when knowledge of the
solar system-as well as public
interest in such planetary ven–
tures-has reached new heights,
unmanned space exploration is
faced with an uncertain future, at
least as far as the United States is
concerned.
In the past 18 years, American
spacecraft have made 23 explora–
tions of other planets.
It
is possible
that one or two more probes will be
scheduled later in the J980s. A
U.S. mission to swing by Halley's
~
Comet in 1986 is much in doubt at "
the moment , however.
~
~
The big issue, of course, is mon-
~
ey. Even though unmanned space
~
probes consume only a small por-
~
tion of the budget of the National
~
Aeronautical and Space Adminis-
l
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