Andrew's Canoeing Postulate

No matter which direction you start, it's always against the wind coming back.

Slightly technish post ahead

One star dies and a new one is born
Well it seems that Galileo has committed suicide - NASA at its benevolent best decided to plunge Galileo into the planet of Jupiter to prevent it from accidently infecting any other satellite of Jupiter so that future explorations would not get false results.
I remember seeing many documentaries on the Discovery about the work done by that spacecraft. Thats what triggered me into writing this.
Sadly Galileo had a long life - three times than the expected value. Read this article to understand what I am talking about. Having its lauch delayed due to the Challenger disaster was not its only setback. Its main communication dish failed to open properly - so it could send information only in trickles - so it could not send many images; but those it sent were very good. It sent very good images of the comet crashing into Jupiter, pictures of the satellites of Jupiter which were very informative. And now it has to die :(

But as in the header, a new star is born... Cassini will reach Saturn next year. It too suffered major setbacks - it was supposed to be launched by nuclear engines;but due to the world opposing it, that was prevented and hence it had to be launched using conventional engines, which not only increased the cost but also the travel time(3 to 7 years) as now it had to go thru the inner solar system in order to gain some speed (by slingshotting around the sun). Hence a long travel time. But hopefully Cassini will be as useful as Galileo.

Sorry for those who pained to read thru that.

On the acads side - another 20 days to sail to Shaastra. and no exams in sight ....