Chapter 31 Chapter 3 Saturn's Rings

> Over the past three months, Bowman has fully adjusted to his solitary life and can hardly remember any other way of life.He has risen beyond despair and hope to settle in a largely mechanical everyday life.There were only occasional crises, when one or another of Discovery's systems seemed a little out of whack. However, he has not been able to get rid of his curiosity, and sometimes he can't help being full of passion and strength when he thinks of the goal he is driving towards.Not only is he the representative of all mankind, but his actions in the next few weeks may determine the fate of mankind.In all history, nothing like it has happened. He is the special and plenipotentiary envoy of all mankind.

This thought supported him in many subtle ways.He kept his appearance neat and tidy; no matter how tired he was, he never shaved more than once.He knew that Mission Command was watching him closely for the first signs of any unusual behavior, and he was determined to keep them from seeing anything seriously ill, at least not from him. Bowman was already aware of some change in the way he acted; it was difficult to imagine no change in the present circumstances.He could no longer stand the silence: except when sleeping, or talking to Earth, he turned the ship's speaker system up to deafening levels.

Even though it's still 10 million miles away, Saturn is at this point larger than the moon seen from Earth.Observed with the naked eye, Saturn is already extremely spectacular; viewed through a telescope, it is even more incredible. The shape of Saturn could be mistaken for Jupiter in a more peaceful state. It also has similar cloud rings, albeit lighter and less clear, and similarly large areas of atmospheric floating.But there is one distinct difference between the two planets; even a glance with the naked eye shows that Saturn is not round.Its poles are flattened, sometimes giving it the appearance of being misshapen.

Saturn's brilliant rings, however, continually drew Bowman's vision away from the planet itself; the rings' intricate detail and riot of color make them as rich as the universe itself.Besides the main divide between the inner and outer rings, there are at least fifty other divisions or divisions.Giving Saturn's giant halo a clear difference in brightness. It seems that there are dozens of concentric circles surrounding Saturn, connected with each other, and they are all flat, as if made of extremely thin paper.The aperture looks like a piece of art, or a fragile toy, meant to be seen, not touched.In any case, it was difficult for Bowman to truly appreciate the size of Saturn; it was also difficult for him to believe that if the entire earth were placed on Saturn, it would be like a bearing ball sliding on a dinner plate.

Occasionally, a star drifts behind Saturn's rings, only slightly dimming its brightness.Starlight usually passes through the translucent material of the ring, and the stars only blink slightly when they are blocked by large rock blocks rotating in their orbits. As has been known since the nineteenth century, these halos are not solid units; that is mechanically impossible.They are the remnants of millions of rocks, possibly the remains of a moon that got too close and was pulled apart by Saturn's enormous gravity.Regardless of its origin, humans are always lucky to get a glimpse; it may be but a fleeting phenomenon in the history of the solar system.

As early as 1945, a British astronomer pointed out that these rings are temporary; gravitational forces will soon destroy them.Going back from this statement, it can be inferred that they were not produced for a long time, but only two or three million years ago. However, Saturn's rings were formed at the same time as human beings. No one has ever given a little thought to this strange coincidence. Discovery was now deep in the middle of Saturn's extensive satellite system, and Saturn itself was less than a day's journey ahead.The ship had long since crossed the boundary defined by the outermost Phoebe, a moon reversing in an out-of-round orbit along eight million miles from Saturn.There are Japite, Hyperion, Titan, Leo, Dane, Thesesis, Anthiradas, Mimas and those halos ahead.

The other moons were cratered by chance encounters with comets, though not so much in the haphazard pattern of alternating light and dark as on Mars, here and there there were spots of light, probably frozen clumps of air.Only Iapetus has its unique topography, and it is indeed a very strange topography. However, when Bowman entered the center of the Saturn system, he could not care about studying Iapetus, because the climax of this trip, the final perturbation of Discovery, was approaching rapidly.When flying by Jupiter, the spacecraft used Jupiter's gravitational field to increase its speed.Now, the spacecraft must do the opposite; it must slow down as much as possible, or it will escape the solar system and fly to other stars.The course it is now taking is designed to enclose it last, making it a new moon of Saturn, and sending it repeatedly in an elongated elliptical orbit two million miles long.The near side of this elliptical orbit almost brushes Saturn, and the far side meets the orbit of Iapetus.

Although the information from the computers on Earth was always three hours late, they all assured Bowman that everything was going well, that the speed and altitude were correct; nothing else could be discussed until the official approach. The huge halo system spans the entire sky at this time, and the spaceship has passed through the outermost edge of the system.Perched some 10,000 miles above, Bowman can be seen through telescopes that the ring is mostly ice, glistening in the sunlight.He seemed to be flying over a snowstorm, and occasionally saw land where the wind and snow did not blow, and sometimes unexpectedly saw a night sky and stars.

By the time Discovery came closer to Saturn, the Sun had already set in the arc of rings.The halo now seemed like a long thin silver bridge across the sky; although the halo was so thin that it could only slightly weaken the sunlight, the tens of thousands of crystals on them refracted the sunlight into dazzling fireworks.As the sun moved behind this thousand-mile-wide orbiting ice stream, phantoms of ice criss-crossed across the sky, turning the entire sky into a swirling firework.Finally, the sun set below the halo, as if passing through a series of arches, and the sky full of fireworks disappeared.

Not long after, the spacecraft swerved into Saturn's shadow, almost touching Saturn's sunlit side as it passed.Stars and halos shone above the spaceship, and a sea of ​​clouds was faintly visible below.There is no such mystical festoon of sparkles that flicker across Jupiter's night sky; probably because Saturn is too cold to display such splendor.Dappled clouds are only discernible in the light reflected from the swirling icebergs.However, a wide black crack appeared in the center of the arc, as if a steel girder was missing from a bridge, which was caused by the shadow of Saturn falling on the ring.

Radio contact with Earth had been lost and could only be restored when the spacecraft emerged from Saturn's gigantic shadow.Fortunately, Bowman was too busy to contemplate the suddenly more solitary circumstances; for for the next few hours, every second would be spent checking the decelerations already programmed by the computers on Earth. . After months of inactivity, the main jet thrusters began to vent miles of hot streams of plasma.The console's weightless environment temporarily regains gravity.Discovery was like a small scorching sun streaking across the long Saturnian night; now, hundreds of miles below, the methane clouds and ammonia ices burned with a brilliance they had never seen before. Dawn finally appeared; the gradually slowing spaceship entered daylight again.It can't escape the sun now, not even the gravitational pull of Saturn, but its speed is still high enough to avoid Saturn and fly out to pass the orbit of Iapetus, which is two million miles away. It would take Discovery fourteen days to complete its upward journey, brushing the orbits of Saturn's inner moons one by one in the opposite direction.They are Mimas, Anthiladas, Tesis, Dane, Leo, Titan, and Hyperion in turn, all named after gods and goddesses; measured by the concept of time in the universe, these gods in Greek mythology The character became immortal only yesterday. The spacecraft will then encounter Iapetus and rendezvous with it.If unsuccessful, it will fall toward Saturn again, spinning in an elliptical orbit endlessly, with each revolution taking twenty-eight days. If Discovery doesn't succeed at this rendezvous, there won't be a second chance. Because in the next lap, Iapetus will be far away, almost turned to the other side of Saturn. Of course, the spacecraft and satellite will meet when the two orbits intersect for the second time. But the next date was many years away, and Bowman knew he would never live to see it anyway.