Bright ideas face test in cold light on Saturn's moon
Sydney Morning Herald, 11th March 2005

This was a short and sweet article about one of Saturn’s moons. I thought that it was quite a good article because while it is informative and contains some interesting facts, the author has also tried to give the reader an idea of how big the figures are by relating it to something they know. For example he says that the moon Enceladus is estimated to contain 70 billion litres of frozen water but he puts it into scale by saying that it is enough to fill the Warragamba Dam more than 37 million times.

The article also contains some facts about the moon including its size, shininess, and composition and a model of how it formed. The article also contains a photograph (supposedly of the moon), which draws the reader’s attention.

The article is also good because it gives the reader an idea about the kind of information that the world’s various spacecraft are gathering and why it is important and relevant. I think that it is important for the public to know where their money is being spent and that it isn’t wasted.

In the article they discuss one astronomer’s theories about the moon but they also make it clear that they are just speculations and that he could be wrong. I appreciated the fact that he didn’t try to hide the fact that they didn’t have any conclusive proof.

There were a few things that I don’t like about this article though. The first is the title; Bright ideas face test in cold light of Saturn’s moon. This title doesn’t make it immediately clear what the article is about and the use of the contrasting words cold and light just sound silly, not clever. The author has also made an attempt to be witty by adding in a few really bad jokes such as the water if melted would be beautiful for martinis and nice to swim in. He was obviously trying to lighten the mood of the article but I found the comments corny and in poor taste.

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