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Subject: Enceladus fly-by results...
Time: 6:55:00 PM EDT
Author: stuartatk
... can be summed up in one word:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
The fly-by occurred around 8pm UK time last night, and we were expecting the first unprocessed images - known as "raw images" out here in space enthusiast land - to be posted on the web around lunchtime this afternoon. So off I went to work today, wondering all the time what Enceladean wonders I'd see when I got home... Ran up the steps into my flat, launched myself through the front door and was turning on my PC and going online even before I'd taken off my rain-drenched coat. Click-click on the raw images website on my favourites list... page began to open... I waited... and waited... and waited... Hmmm, I thought,must be busy, I'll try again in a few minutes. (Kettle put on, tea bag in cup, boiling water in cup...) Try again... click-click... Grrr, still not letting me on. Try AGAIN...
... and repeat for the next SEVEN HOURS!!!!
Yes, seven hours after coming home I still haven't seen the raw images! If it wasn't for my friends on unmannedspaceflight.com who posted a few pics to show them there, and for the scientists, engineers and media experts contributing to the Enceladus fly-by blog I would have seen NOTHING AT ALL! It's SO frustrating!!
But it's a bitter-sweet kind of frustration, because it means that the images are being seen by lots of people somewhere. Maybe these are existing space enthusiasts who, like me, have had this date circled in red pen in their diaries or on their wall planners for months and are now enjoying the results. Or maybe the people looking at the pictures are newcomers to the site, and to Cassini's mission; people who heard about the fly-by on the news, or in a paper or magazine, or on another website, and thought they'd go see what all the fuss was about...
And that's fantastic, fantastic, because it means these images are reaching a whole new audience, and possibly inspiring those people to check out some more websites, buy an astronomy magazine or book, or go to a meeting of their local astronomy society? Maybe some of the people seeing these images will be excited enough by them to start taking more notice of the geology of the planet they live on? Maybe some of the kids looking at these images on computer screens in their schools, or at home in their bedtrooms, will realise that the kids who tell them that science is for geeks are wrong, and science is actually exciting and fun. Maybe some of the adults sneaking a look at these pictures will realise that their son or daughter isn't wasting their time looking at "that space stuff" after all, and that it's worth buying them the telescope or binoculars or star atlas they've been asking for.
Maybe I can't get online to see the images because somewhere, right now, as I sit here cursing my empty screen, there's a young boy or girl with who knows what kinds of troubles weighing them down, looking at images of Enceladus like this...
...and thinking "THAT'S what I want to do..."
I hope so, I really do, because I've waited MONTHS to see these images and it's frustrating to not be able to see them now. But maybe, just maybe, it's the Universe's way of making me pay for, and be grateful for, the wonders I've already seen and enjoy regularly.... the copper-hued total lunar eclipses, the comet tails airbrushed across the sky, the northern lights setting the sky on fire, the ISS skating across the heavens like a stone skimmed across a glittering pond... Who knows?
Oh well, I can be patient if I have to. I'll just keep checking the raw images website, I'm bound to get on eventually. Maybe I've just become spoiled, what with having access to new images from and of Mars, Saturn, asteroids, comets and the seething surface of the Sun at my fingertips whenever I want them...!
Yes, I can wait. For now. But when I'm sat here again in May, waiting for the first images to come down from Phoenix, I'll be a nervous, shouting, screaming, screen-punching monster if I can't get to them, and I might well end up doing something drastic...
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3/14/08 6:36 PM
WOW!