From what I can gather, NASA’s ‘Cassini Mission’ to Saturn cost the taxpayers about $3.9 billion.
That’s probably more money than I will make in my entire life.
The 20-year project featured a weird-looking space probe the size of a school bus that spent 13 years orbiting the big planet, doing research that will make life better for all of us.
For example, we now know that Saturn has its axis tilted at 26.73 degrees — similar to Earth’s tilt of 23.5 degrees — meaning that, like Earth, Saturn has seasons. The seasons all tend to feel like winter, however.
We also learned that Saturn has a dense core of metals like iron and nickel surrounded by rocky material and other compounds. The core is enveloped by liquid metallic hydrogen inside a layer of liquid hydrogen — similar to Jupiter’s core, but considerably smaller.
Who knew?
Thanks to all that hydrogen, Saturn has an average density less than water, meaning that the giant gas planet could float in a bathtub if such a colossal thing existed. (But it doesn’t exist, as far as we know.)
Personally, I’m not a big fan of hydrogen, metallic or otherwise (I’ve written about my concerns previously) but I am indeed a big fan of Saturn’s glorious rings, and even more so, its moons. All of you have no doubt heard about Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury, and has been discussed at length in earth-bound media sources like Scientific American, National Geographic, Popular Mechanics, and FindYourHappyWeight.com
Titan, however, has a number of slightly less famous sibling moons, of various sizes, orbiting the big guy in generally the same direction. 81 siblings, in fact.
Why a planet would need 82 moons is beyond me. Earth seems to get along just fine with one.
Especially, considering that an amazing, multi-colored ring encircles the entire planet as well. Can we spell, ‘overkill’?
Which bring me to the subject I really wanted to talk about all along. Namely, does God exist?
This question comes up for me, pretty much every day, because I’m constantly looking for evidence. And when I learned that the Cassini mission had identified 82 moons circling Saturn, I immediately thought to myself, “Why would God bother creating 82 moons to encircle an enormous planet made of hydrogen, where every season feels like winter?”
I mean, I’ve never tried to make a planet, or even a moon, but it seems to me considerable effort would be involved. So, you create a planet where nothing can possible live, encircle it with a beautiful pattern of colored rings, set 82 moons spinning around it… and then put it so far away that we can hardly see it with a telescope.
Who would do that kind of thing? Somebody with time on their hands, obviously.
When I find myself mulling these kinds of questions, I sometimes go back the Bible to find help and consolation, and flip the book open at random, and read the wisdom there on the page…
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
And I think about those males and females… the hundreds of scientists and engineers and machinists and chemists and physicists and astronomers and computer programmers who worked on the Cassini mission, and who spent $3.9 billion creating a fancy, high-tech school bus to circle the planet Saturn for 13 years, and then posted stories about the mission on FindYourHappyWeight.com.
And I realize the wisdom of the scriptures. Truly, we are created in God’s image.
With time on our hands, obviously.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.