Cassini/Huygens Mission Update Thread

[rogers_buck]

After pondering the first surface picture, I started to wonder if the rounded ice/rocks might not be Titan's version of hail stones. Perhaps something other than water, but the probe did get a strong sonar return from something a few kilos up indicating a cloud or something in its path. Perhaps under certain conditions large hail made out of something other than water (or even water) falls.

 

[astrophoto]

Have you seen the animated gif put together of the static ground view?<br /><br />http://www.mars.asu.edu/~gorelick/huygens1.gif<br /><br />Two interesting things here. First is there is an object which moves through view - it is white and moves through the frames. It does not look like an artifact - could it be debris from the lander/parachute? Snow? Dust? A Titanian Moth? harhar<br /><br />The second thing is most likely just image noise due to the poor resolution of the images, but doesnt it seem like the dark matter moves/flows in one direction? Most likely just an artifact, but worth looking at considering we landed in a 'dark' area.

 

[soulseeker]

Why are all the images so crapy?

 

[bobvanx]

>>titanian moth<br /><br />hydrocarbon snow? Those bright spots are certainly going to give the scientists fits for a while.<br /><br />The dark area "motion" is just as likely compression artifacts showing up across mulitple frames as it is motion (perhaps more likely). Also, we don't know if the person assembling these was able to put them in correct sequence. You'd assume that first in = first image, but that might not be the case.<br /><br />It's so cold there. 98k! Brr. Fluids are going to act oddly.

 

[bobvanx]

>>Why are all the images so crap[p]y?<br /><br />Could be the place is very hazy. Maybe Huygens landed in an ethane fog bank.

 

[JonClarke]

yes of course, the ONLY POSSIBLE explanation is a conspiracy. There is not possibility is there that there might be a perfectly simple, technical and innocent explanation?<br /><br />Why make this assumption? What logical reason is there?<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[spacechump]

You mean THESE sross?<br /><br />http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~kholso/test_images.htm<br /><br />It's called LOOKING! They updated their site to look more professional. That's all! Everything is still there!<br /><br />And those images weren't processed. That is explained on the site as well! <br /><br />Man some people just tick me off! They just LOOK for stuff to complain about!

 

[tom_hobbes]

We're very lucky to have the images we've seen. I was actually impressed by the amount of detail visible, having worried that all we'd get back from the descent pictures might be some great looking smog.<br /><br />Bravo ESA, NASA! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[JonClarke]

I look at a few of space discussion boards. It is less than 48 hours since the probe landed and we already have conspiracy talk abounding, not to mention a whole bunch of people who seem to think this is an opportunity to vent their spleen at ESA. Talk about the shallow end of the gene pool.......<br /><br />Well done ESA (and NASA) and all the thousands of people who worked for twenty years to achieve this wonderful thing!<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[tom_hobbes]

Absolutely in agreement! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[blairf]

JonClark (re the whingers/conspiracy nuts)<br />Amen to that. I blame their mothers.<br /><br />

 

[tom_hobbes]

Aye.<br /><br />And it's understandable that there simply wasn't time or bandwidth enough to transmit a huge amount of visual information. It's a breathtaking achievement that the probe arrived at all, let alone functioning very nearly flawlessly after so many years in transit. Shame about channel A, but we're lucky to have anything at all, let alone such wonderfully suggestive images.<br /><br />I'm assuming that there is still a wealth of scientific data to be processed, despite the loss of one channel?<br /><br />It wouldn't surprise me if there were a number of return visits already on the drawing board! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[silylene old]

Astrophoto,<br /><br />I am still waiting for someone to stack all the surface images so we can see a "super-resolution" single image. That said, I watched the animated gif for many cycles, until the features became familiar enough to "mentally stack" (similar to what our brain does when watching a scene in the fog). I think I see something interesting, perhaps I need to make a montage to describe.<br /><br />The two "rocks" nearest the lander seem to be pushed into the surface, unlike other "rocks". Evidence for this is the dark rim which partially surrounds the back half of each "rock". They look like rocks which are sitting on firm mud, and then have been pushed downwards somewhat. Interesting! Did these "rocks" get bumped from above as the lander descended (could the lander have bounced a little?). Did these two rocks sink into the surface because heat from the lander melted/softened the surface right next to these rocks?<br /><br />Next: In the animated gif, look carefully at the surface brightness variations on the potato-shaped "rock" in the bottom left (the rock closest to the lander). The brightness variations seem to be caused by rounded bumps on the rock's surface, or perhaps the rock is rather smooth and the reflectivity varies because of compositional changes. What is interesting is that these brightness variations on the rock's surface seem to change with time, and that there are enough intermediate frames in the changing brightnesses which support that (some) of the changes may not simply be noise. I am wondering if we may be observing that the rock's surface is slowly subliming due to the proximity of the relatively warmer lander. Supporting this hypothesis is the additional observation that "rocks" further from the lander seem to not show similar reflectivity variations (or what changes are seen seem to be noise). Or maybe I am just imagining this. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>

 

[fangsheath]

I don´t know what you think you´re comparing. The very excellent stitched panorama put together by Christian Waldvogel:<br /><br />http://anthony.liekens.net/titan/titan_panorama.jpg<br /><br />is quite comparable to that of the Picacho Peak area at the UA site: <br /><br />http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~kholso/images/team_images/h3_500_big_merc.jpg<br /><br />The differences are mainly due to the fact that Titan´s surface is much darker and shrouded in haze, plus the fact that the area directly under the probe at that moment has few distinct surface features. If we take an area with some detail off toward the horizon in the first image and compare it to a similar area in the second, we get the following.<br /><br />Finally, some people seem to be under the impression that the mostly unprocessed imagery released by ESA is all we are going to see. Patience!<br /><br />

 

[yurkin]

Those Mars Rover PanCams have spoiled us. A single full color Panoramic PanCam Picture is 13 MB, that’s two thirds of the total Huygens bandwidth. Since Huygens is only on the surface half an hour, just 20% of the bandwidth is available at the surface. So it would be three times as much bandwidth as Huygens has!<br /><br />Actually now that I’m looking at the Pancam pictures some the processed ones are around 40 MB.

 

[astrophoto]

Silyene,<br /><br />Your observations are interesting. I too have stared at the animated gif for extended periods of time and I see many things that intrigue me. The surface variations have a pattern to them that seem to indicate environmental change over time. This may be do to the introduction of the lander, or be a naturally occuring phenom. The middle areas of the frame contain darker and less-rock-populated zones which seem to contain some sort of surface movement.<br /><br />Even more intriguing to me are the white objects that fly around the frames. One appears to lift off from the large round pebble on the left - closest to the lander fly to the upper right of the frame, then come back down again. I am NOT a conspiracy theorist, just someone who's watching this carefully. I am sure there is a non-life explanation for it I just want to point it out to everyone.<br /><br />As for stacking frames - I do quite a bit of astrophotography and stacking frames is very important on dim objects. The idea is increasing the amount of light received on each successive 'frame' and compounding enough frames to brighten the object while reducing noise. KEY to this method is having a dark-frame. Something which shows up the hot spots and natural 'noise' contained on the CCD chip. So to eliminate the true noise of the photos without taking away real data from them we would most likely require a dark-frame taken by the CCD (this is typically done by putting the lense cap on and taking a photo for each picture you take). Some newer cameras do this automatically on command as well. The thing is I highly doubt ESA took dark frames and transmitted them across the billions of km to Earth for this purpose. If you do find them, please let me know.

 

[soulseeker]

I'm sorry but those images should be near perfect, I have seen better images on an old c64, for the money spent on that probe they should look a million times better then what they do. You can say whatever you want but all of you know that they should look better.

 

[the_ten]

<font color="yellow">"agreed, something doesn't add up here, I saw the test images and these don't even look like it's from the same device. It's as if they are applying an "artifact filter", and I even heard some images were violently withdrawn from the public for mysterious reasons."</font><br />=====<br />Whether it's raining, snowing, lightening storming or showing an alien family have a nice day @ the beach, what the HELL could be soooooo secret about Titan to *hide* the information from the public, on earth, who would have no means of exploiting it anyway?<br /><br />The only answer I could come up with is proof-of-life. Evidence of life outside our atmosphere could cause some problems for the religious loons whose religions don't allow for it...

 

[spacechump]

Than you're a very ignorant person soulseeker.

 

[yurkin]

<font color="yellow">"as simple as throwing a switch to, 'On.' We did not set the Cassini software to 'On' and it's our fault," said Jacques Louet, head of science projects at ESA.</font><br /><br />I have to commend Monsieur Louet for his remarks. He correctly identified the problem without sugar coating the simplicity of it. <br />The problems with the doppler shift problem in the antenna/radar should have been a big clue to look over every bit of the code in that device.<br />Ground based radio telescopes were able to pick up the wind Doppler data unfortunately Huygens was too deep in the atmosphere to transmit back the images. But we have some powerful telescopes here. So perhaps traces of the lost pictures were captured and these can be assembled.<br />

 

[kaisern]

How is he ignorant? What's ignorant? How is it ignorant to expect that a project with a $3.4 billion dollar budget return images that are discernable and in-focus?<br /><br />COME ON, PEOPLE! In-focus is not too much to ask! I understand there's fog and haze and a hostile environment, but how about some in-focus pictures of haze and fog and a hostile environment?! All those pictures are OUT OF FOCUS!

 

[tom_hobbes]

<img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[shishka]

Has anyone done this yet?<br /><br />I noticed that the animated .gif file made from the surface plays back at a slow pace (about a frame per half second). It seemed too slow. SO:<br /><br />Take the .gif file of the surface and save it. Play it back in Windows Media player. This player plays back the .gif file at a higher speed and repeats the compilation twice during each playback. At that speed, you can see what appears to be precipitation (flakes) falling at the right side of the shot. Intruguing, to say the least.

 

[shishka]

here's the gif file. Sorry.

 

[bobvanx]

I was spending some effort duplicating the animated sequences from the images taken after landing, and I realized that the black frames probably are the zero-point CCD frames, or whatever they are called. IE, the frames they take so they can calibrate the science results by removing the camera noise.<br /><br />But there are another class of images altogether, images that are of a gray non-linear gradient field. I decided to string those together, as well, and they sure look like fog passing the lens.<br /><br />If Titan fog is really that dense, then the optics could very well have become covered with the Titanian equivalent of vaseline on the way through the atmosphere.<br /><br />So be patient, everybody. With the image processing tools the team has at their disposal, we'll see some great stuff in a few days.