What Is This?

via Gizmodo by Jack Loftus on 8/9/09



Ready for some mystery? The answer is... we don't know!

It's true. We (being astronomers and people far smarter than I) really don't know. But we do know where this mysterious event took place: One billion kilometers away, in Saturn's F ring.

The pic was snapped by a school bus sized gadget we call Cassini. It's been orbiting Saturn since 2004, and the wealth of data, photos and knowledge beamed back to us in that timeframe is nothing short of amazing.

But this latest snapshot is an enigma. Something punched through the F ring, violently spewing a plume of dust, ice and rock out into the nothingness—but what?

Even more mysterious is the bright spot left in the object's wake. Icy crystals laid bare for the Sun's rays? A new material? A cosmic mooning from some alien prankster? Possibly, but whatever it is, it's yet another reminder of how violent and unexpected space can be.

The many rings of Uranus

Might as well kill two birds with one stone here:

The Saturn Ion. It was born ugly, only to recieve a facelift where it needed it the least and came out fuglier than it went in. The worst part about the Ion is it's rear. Multiple cutlines meet in an odd pattern that looks as if part of the taillights are covered in plastic on the side. When it received a facelift this was left unchanged, yet they added an awkward larger grille. Note that the previous horizontal bar grille left indents on the headlights. As a cost cutting measure they used the same headlights and simply added a small chrome triangle to fill in where the previous grille left off. Classy. I think the only thing that could look worse is primer coloured bodyfill.

Another interesting note: on the orginal Ion some of the packages left an arc of grey coloured plastic over the doors. No matter the colour of the car, the colour of the plastic stayed them same. If you ordered a grey car, than it looked as if that particular part was painted the wrong colour. The rear view I've attached is of the first gen Ion so you can see the colour difference. I think they elimated this "feature" with the facelift.

The Saturn L200/300. In it's first generation it was a midly attractive if boring Opel Vectra clone. For some reason Saturn decided to give a mid-life facelift, including huge stretched headlights and a larger grille. The new version looks shocked and angry. Also, the grille is now made of hundreds of versions of the Saturn emblem. If that's not overkill, I don't know what is.

A Vue from Uranus

Is it just me, or does the front of the new facelifted Vue look like a carp trying to force out a giant crap?