Cassini/Huygens Mission Update Thread

[billslugg]

Post deleted by billslugg <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>news sure is scarce at the moment..</i><br /><br />Science just ate a meal with more than one course. It may take awhile to digest...<br /><br />What has already been served has left me pushing back a little bit from the table. Need time to let things settle. For instance:<br /><br />From a story I cited earlier (Huygens sends first Titan images(BBC)), there's this comment from the lead investigator for the Surface Science Package, John Zarnecki, who was quoted saying:<br /><br />'<i>If it's not a sea, it could be a lake of tar. And did one see waves?</i>'<br /><br />All of the sudden, I want to help Calli write her story - it would be a good one. : )

 

[thalion]

I second Claywoman. I've been waiting for this moment since I was a young'un, so it's great to see this moment in all its glory. I bet this will be the most dramatic piece of unmanned space exploration history for a long, long time. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />A hearty "bravo!" to each and every person involved in the project, and whose hopes and efforts carried Huygens to her final resting place on Titan.

 

[bobvanx]

Looking at the drawings of Huygens, it looks like the camera is fixed, and they were relying on the probe to spiral about.<br /><br />That's not a bad plan, it's less complex. And when you're sending what amounts to a automatic cameraphone to another world, building it robust is better than complex.<br /><br />The image-splicing algorithms are very powerful, so in a few days we should see some excellent imagery. They even have a method to find basic color by mapping data from another instrumant onto the B&W images.

 

[fossils]

OUT OF THIS WORLD PHOTOS!<br /><br />http://homepage.mac.com/lyford/ramm/pano567-nodupes.jpg<br /><br />Sea, shoreline, cliffs, rivers, streams, delta – The wonderful astonishing astounding marvelous incredible amazing world of Titan!

 

[serak_the_preparer]

Try out this thread: Images from Titans Huygens Probe<br /><br />Elberon posted this link there:<br /><br />http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=1298 <br /><br />And Rlb2 has followed up with actual color images in the very next post.<br /><br />Go see - gorgeous!

 

[fossils]

The Titan panorama during the final decent:<br />

 

[claywoman]

Fossils,<br /><br />I couldn't get your site to download except for about a half an inch????

 

[yurkin]

Fossils<br />Where did you find that! Its the best one I've seen so far. Thanks! <br /><br />Claywoman,<br />Explorer is trying to resize it for your. Save the picture to a file, and then open it up from there.

 

[larper]

That series of photos is absolutely stunning. We have seen nothing like that in our solar system except here on Earth! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Vote </font><font color="#3366ff">Libertarian</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[odysseus145]

Claywoman, some browser will shrink pictures to a size that will fit the screen. If you're using Firefox just click on the picture when a magnifying glass shows up for the cursor. In IE, a button will appear at the bottom right of the picture. Click it and it will return to normal size. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[claywoman]

OMG!!! I have no words for this!!! I cannot believe what I saw on that panorama!!!<br /><br />it was like I saw maybe waves or sandbars? Possibly a current? My son is a rafting guide, he'd flip out at guiding a trip down that river!!!<br /><br />Thank you so much for posting it!!! I will think of thousands of questions tomorrow!!!

 

[aliekens]

You can find amateur compositions of the raw Huygens images at<br /><br />http://anthony.liekens.net/index.php/Main/Huygens<br /><br />Before NASA and ESA publish them!

 

[btimsah]

Yeah thank's Anthony. Some great photo's, undoubtedly will have the "anomaly hunters" excited <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />Good job on those images =D

 

[claywoman]

I hate to show my ignorance but I can't stand it any longer...What do you mean by anomaly hunters? I think I know what anomaly means, which is something out of the ordinary is that how its used here also? I know, I'm probably being stupid here...

 

[fossils]

I thought the MER NASA/JPL press conferences were weird sometimes - so many discoveries at hand and the reporters always asked important questions like: How far did the rovers go? Is the power OK? - Not a single intelligent question about the observations.<br /><br />Today I tried to watch the NASA TV coverage of the ESA Huygens data recovery "show" and was dismayed. The euro reporters are even less intelligent or find that looking at a new world is boring! Apparently I am not the only one who thinks this way:<br /><br /><br />http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05g.html<br /><br /><br />I found the raw photos by looking around...<br />

 

[rocketwatcher2001]

Claywoman-<br />I think they mean folks who look at the pix from other worlds, and look very hard, so hard, that a rock becomes a statue, like the "face on Mars"<br /><br />How many other worlds have we taken pictures <b>from</b>?<br /><br />Moon (Luna)<br />Venus<br />Mars<br />Titan<br /><br />Anywhere else? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[aliekens]

We now also have stereoscopic images from the mountain ranges of Titan<br /><br />http://anthony.liekens.net/index.php/Main/Huygens

 

[xojackso]

The third image on this link; posted before here, someone spoke of rippling waves in the upper third of the frame-I swear, those stones look like they've been subject to water erosion. <br /><br />Liquid erosion, anyway.<br /><br />Hey, at least I'm not calling them eggs.<br /><br />This terrain is just stunning. I've been waiting for this probe since it was launched. Since before it was launched.

 

[bobvanx]

>>anomaly hunters<br /><br />Go to Anthony's page and look at the movie, a sequence of ground images, of what should be a motionless place. You'll see some sort of bright will-o'-wisp flitting between the rocks across several of the frames.<br /><br />Anomalous!<br /><br />[edit] waitaminute... it looks like rain would look, in a stop-motion film.

 

[bobvanx]

>>Moon (Luna) <br /> />>Venus <br /> />>Mars<br /> />>Titan <br /> <br />Earth! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br />

 

[bobw]

I think I have a dumber question (for anyone, not just you). It's like an anomaly but not just in the picture. The one on the space dot com news article:<br /><br />http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/huygens_images_050114.html<br /><br />of the river-like structure looks like a section of a larger picture, the second one, from here:<br /><br />http://uplink.space.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=sciastro&Number=129100&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31<br /><br />It says:<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The image appears to show ravines that could have been carved by the liquid hydrocarbons thought to cover much of Titan's surface. The ravines, stubby drainage-like channels, appeared to funnel toward what appeared to be a shoreline, researchers said during their initial reactions to the image. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Well my question is what do they think is funneling to the lake? It seems like they mean the dendrites. On earth when we see small going to big it usually means the liquid flows that way which makes little streams uphill from the main river. On this one it looks (especially on rlb2's picture) like the stuff is flowing from hills into a river. Do you see what I mean? It looks to me like that mountain looking area is draining into a river that might hit the lake, like the lake is in a crater and the dendrite things are on the outside of the lip going downhill. I f the river hits the lake then it would be against gravity for the river to flow out the lake and then down the dendrites into the lake again. <br /><br />I guess I'm not matching up what I think I see with what I think is the explaination. Can anybody help me out? What am I missing? It seems <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[thalion]

Incredible images, and great work--thanks for the link!

 

[thalion]

By the way--and I'm merely guessing--maybe the counterintuitive way the channels seem to be set up is a by-product of the different way liquid ethane or methane behaves running over ice, as compared to water on rock and soil.

 

[fossils]

It must "rain" something "liquid" on Titan. This collects and drains into the "lakes".<br /><br />The photos of the tributaries are taken from kilometers above and it is hard to get a sense of the topography. It is likely that there is a ridge next to the edge of the "lake" (maybe from a crater) and the tributaries flow away from the edge but combine and curve back around where a "stream" flows into the "lake" where there is no ridge along the edge.<br /><br />It is mesmerizing to see "fluid" on another world! Is that a "foamy" edge?<br /><br />http://anthony.liekens.net/titan/triplet.700.colorized.jpg<br />