Tour of Saturn through Cassini, the satellite that crashes on Friday

About two decades ago, the Cassini satellite headed towards Saturn and has been orbiting the planet for 13 years. The satellite is scheduled to crash into Saturn’s atmosphere on Friday so Nadia Drake and Brian T. Jacobs for National Geographic toured through the satellite’s best finds. This is quite the scroller and feels pretty grand.

No matter how many times it happens, it still blows my mind that satellites are sent into space for decades, reach their destination, and can still send data all the way back to us.

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A century of Einstein’s general #relativity, life on a Saturn moon, sugar industry influences dental research

Everything’s relative Einstein’s paper on general relativity was published in 1915. The paper didn’t appear until December of that year, but there’s already been some celebratory centennial doings. Science published a special issue last week, and it looks as if … Continue reading »

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Nature Makes Pretty Things, Not Art

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Nature is an artist & lets paint swirl together in this pic of Saturn’s rings & cloud layers – @NASA 12:23PM 23 Nov 2014

For one moment, I’m going to be that guy who insists on taking a metaphor literally. Artists are not defined by their methods, nor by their ability to make pretty things.

The job of artists is to touch draw us out through sensory experiences in ways that convey understanding, challenge preconceptions, and move us in new, unique, and effective ways. Beauty is but one tool that can serve the artistic purpose.

I cannot define art coherently. I simply know that we need both robotic space probes taking pictures of other planets and creative human beings here on Earth devoted to artistic exploration – and that we conflate the two at our own peril.


Filed under: The Art of Science Tagged: Art, Cassini, NASA, Saturn, sciart