Comments on Saturn Wins Galactic Beauty Pageant

I just want to fuck that planet. It is so hot!

Yeah, let's see more hot planet-on-planet action around here.

If nothing else, it'll make Charles' head explode.

NASA has been piling up a long list of successful non-manned missions over the last decade and a half.

Their shift of strategy to smaller planetary lander/scout and fly-by programs that are packed with rapidly-advancing technology will continue to blow our minds during our lifetimes.

@Lloyd - I agree. Maybe they've hired more video gamers at NASA, who know from strategy games that you send out the small, expendable scouts to explore the unknown territory before you send out the expensive, big battleships.

Expendable?

Heck, these probes will still be intact, if not exactly functioning, when most of the people alive today are long forgotten.

"Smaller, cheaper, faster" has definitely been a good strategy.

They're already starting the 'space museum' on Mars as the probes are running out of juice : )

The more NASA et al are uncovering, the more you realize that everything in the solar system is made out of the same stuff and that even rock lives.

Sometimes I feel like that little moon in the bottom picture.

statistically, there's got to be hotter planets in other solar systems.

we just can't see them.

Statistically there has to be a planet out there that looks like a big pink breast. Statistically.

And let us not forget the "Planet Of Beer" - statistically speaking, that is.

Ha ha @ 9.

Statistically, will there also be one shaped like a big pink penis with a strategically-placed meteorite impact site? That would be awesome!

Goodly wit and humor abound --- these photos are spiritual, like they belong at some alter somewhere. What a benefit - think of all the Iraq war money spent on space, or just a 20 per cent slice.

Great images. I have always loved Saturn and its rings are such a wonder. Jupiter has some nascent rings I think.

Think of that storm- all trees down - no power for years.

Why do tits and dick always appear in these comments? Posters here are sex fiends and Trekkies. Nice.

Wonder where the best place to download for color replication to put on my apt. walls somewhere.....any ideas?

rorry -- go here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_771.html

@11:

Unlikely. Planets by definition are circular bodies.

A penis-shaped asteroid, maybe. But a penis-shaped planet, definitely not.

@12:

Okay, in all seriousness, one of the amazing things we've discovered from sending out probes such as Cassini is that apparently ring formation is common among "Jovian" or gas giant planets. All four Jovian planets in our system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, have ring formations. Although Saturn is the only planet with rings generally visible from earth, the Hubble Space Telescope has photographed parts of Uranus' ring system.

Does The Stranger give awards for best posts/comment threads?

And @7: me too.

cool pics